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Copyright N° .Q 3 ^ ^ 


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“There, now— quick !” For at] this moment she 
spied a pudgy red -brown form creeping stealthily 
toward them. p a ge 15 


TRAIL AND 
TREE TOP 


By ALLEN CHAFFEE 

»» 

Author of The Adventures of Twinkly Eyes, 
The Little Black Bear. 


Illustrated by PETER DA RU 


1920 

MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 
SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 




Copyright 1920 

By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 
Springfield, Massachusetts 
All Rights Reserved 



©CU566328 


i^a.6 


h 

INTRODUCTION 


TJTERE, in true-to-nature form, are some of 
** the comic, daring or pathetic exploits of 
Mammy Cottontail, Jimmy Crow, and brave 
grumpy old Fatty Chuck, for whom Frisky 
Fox and others kept things so lively. And 
here is the Boy from the Valley Farm, who knew 
just what to do in some of the emergencies 
that befell his furred and feathered friends. 

While there are a few big words for the 
grown-ups, they are all explained for the 
younger readers. 


ALLEN CHAFFEE. 



INDEX 


Chapter 

I. 

The Six New Little Bunnies 




Page 

9 

II. 

Wriggly Nose Learns Cam-ou-flage 



12 

III. 

Frisky Fox Goes Hunting . 




16 

IV. 

Wriggly Nose and the Owl . 




19 

V. 

Fortune Favors the Brave . 




23 

VI. 

Wriggly Nose Does a Turn 




27 

VII. 

Wriggly Heads a Merry Chase 




30 

VIII. 

Mammy Cottontail to the Rescue 



33 

IX. 

The Owl Comes Back 




36 

X. 

The Owl Finds His Quarry 




39 

XI. 

Never Say Die . 




42 

XII. 

The Cottontails Find New Quarters 



45 

XIII. 

Young Timothy and Thomas 




48 

XIV. 

A Good Fight . 




52 

XV. 

In the Cabbage Patch 




55 

XVI. 

A Council of War. 




58 

XVII. 

Poison! Beware! 




61 

XVIII. 

Through the Barbed Wire . 




64 

XIX 

Jimmy Fools the Hound 




67 

XX. 

In the Quicksands 




70 

XXI. 

Where Was Timothy? 




74 

XXII. 

Jimmy Talks Crows’ Rights 




77 

XXIII. 

Jimmy’s Find . 




81 

XXIV 

Jimmy is Forgiven 




84 

XXV. 

Jimmy Gets into Trouble 




87 

XXVI. 

Introducing Fatty Chuck 




90 

XXVII. 

When a Woodchuck Would 




93 

XXVIII. 

Jim Crow Has a Plan . 




97 

XXIX. 

Fatty Puts Up a Fight 




101 

XXX. 

The Rat Trap . 




104 

XXXI. 

A Desperate Remedy 




107 


Chapter 

XXXII. 

A Silver Lining . 




Page 

110 

XXXIII. 

Close of Kin 


. 


113 

XXXIV.. 

Mammy Pays a Call . 




117 

XXXV. 

Jimmy Has an Accident 




121 

XXXVI. 

Friends to the Rescue 




124 

XXXVII. 

A Merry Prisoner 




127 

XXXVIII. 

The Ruby-Throats 




131 

XXXIX. 

Getting Even with Thomas 




134 

XL. 

A Use for Tin Cans . 




137 

XLI. 

A Joke on Thomas 




140 

XLII. 

Buried Treasure 




143 

XLIII. 

Indian Summer 




146 

XLIV. 

Fatty and the Red Fox Pup 




149 

XLV. 

New Friends for Old 




152 

XL VI. 

A Lesson on Mushrooms 




156 

XLVII. 

A Night of Terror 




159 

XL VIII. 

The Old, Old Chuck . 




162 

XLIX. 

A Tilt with Twinkly Eyes . 




166 

L. 

The Rattlesnake 




170 

LI. 

Cooper the Hawk 




173 

LII. 

Old Man Lynx . 




176 

LIII. 

The Red Fox Pup 




179 

LIV. 

A Race to the Swift . 




182 

LV. 

A Happy Accident 




185 

LVI. 

Madame Wood Hare . 




188 

LVII. 

The Trail of the Weasel 




191 

LVIII. 

One Foe Against Another 




195 

LIX. 

A Visit to the Farm . 




198 

LX. 

A Happy Ending 




201 


To my Mother, 
who finds in Nature 
one of the greatest 
awards of life. 



























* 
































Trail and Tree Top 


i 

THE SIX NEW LITTLE 
BUNNIES 

The sun rose red from behind the woods 
that fringed the Valley Farm. 

The April air was like a drink from a moun- 
tain brook. And the awakening wood birds 
piped their first joyous notes. 

Father Red Fox, and other hunters of the 
darkness, were just returning to their dens 
to sleep. And down in the meadow behind 
the Valley Farm, Mammy Cottontail, the 
little brown Hare, sat gazing proudly at her 
nestful of brown bunnies, half hidden under a 
mullein plant. 

So still were they, and colored so like the 
soil, that Cooper Hawk, flying over-head, 
took them for clods of earth. 

“Sh!” said Mammy, as Daddy Cottontail 
came hopping home with a big mouthful of 
pink sweet clover for her. 


10 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


“Aren’t they just too lovely for words?” 

Daddy glanced proudly at the six wee forms, 
sleeping cuddled up together in the grass. 
Mammy had strewn dried grass over them 
till even Tattle-tale the Jay would have had 
to look close to make sure they were there. 

“Now stand on guard while I feed them,” 
said Mammy with a touch of her whiskers 
that Daddy understood without words. — And 
she stretched out beside them like a cat with 
her kittens, licking first one and then another 
of the tiny velvet heads, and nuzzling them 
all over to make quite sure they were all 
right. 

And you never in all your life saw six cuter 
little round balls of fur, with their long pink- 
lined ears laid flat over their backs, and their 
wee black noses that wriggled and wriggled, as 
they tested the fragrances of the new strange 
world they found themselves in. 

Then, suddenly, Mammy whistled under 
her breath, stiffening with fright. For down 
the wind! came the faint ribbon of a musky 
odor, that told her Father Red Fox was 
headed their way. 

“You stay right here,” quavered Daddy. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


11 


‘Til go head him off!” 

And with a valiant bound of his long hind 
legs he was leaping helter-skelter for the 
woods, where he cut straight across the fox’s 
path. 

As he had intended, the fox turned the 
instant he caught sight of him, his errand 
down toward the Valley Farm forgotten, and 
made for Daddy. 

With heart thumping wildly at the risk he 
ran — for Red Fox could all but match his 
speed, pace for pace — he was off for the 
underbrush that would hide his fleeing form, 
so that he could camouflage against some 
mound of earth as brown as himself. 

Up hill and down dale he dashed, here 
dodging behind a log, there trying to hide 
under a big skunk cabbage, but all to no 
avail. Father Red Fox was always close at 
his heels. 


II 


WRIGGLY NOSE LEARNS 
CAMOUFLAGE 

Things certainly looked badly for Daddy 
Cottontail ! 

No matter how he turned and twisted, 
as he raced through the underbrush, Red 
Fox was always close at his heels ! A 
moment more and those hungry jaws would 
snap over the brown bunny’s back, and 
Mammy Cottontail and the babies would 
wait in vain in the nest in the meadow beyond 
the Valley Farm. 

Daddy’s wind was nearly gone. Finally a 
desperate idea came to him! 

Quick as a flash he turned in his tracks and 
darted straight back between his pursuer’s legs ! 

Before ever Father Red Fox recovered from 
his amazement, Daddy hurtled down into the 
swamp, where he was just able to balance 
on a tuft of grass that would have sunk under 
the larger animal. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


13 


There he waited, crouched down under a 
skunk cabbage, till Red Fox gave it up and 
went in search of easier game. 

When Daddy returned home that night, his 
paws covered with swamp mud, he found 
Mammy all but crazy, she had been so 
worried. For Father Red Fox was certain- 
ly an enemy not easily outwitted, for all 
of Daddy’s prowess at the running high 
jump. 

As she had waited, huddled before the nest 
in the brown turf guarding its furry secrets, 
she had decided that the very minute Daddy 
got back they must teach the children cam- 
ou-flage. These were uncertain times at best, 
and when one cannot fight, and is too young 
to run away, the next best thing is to cam- 
ou-flage. That is, — to pretend to be a clod, or 
a stump, or a pile of brown leaves, — which is 
all cam-ou-flage really means to a bunny. 

Wriggly Nose especially needed to learn 
camouflage, because he was so much larger 
and stronger than his brothers and sisters 
that already he showed a tendency to poke 
his little black nose into trouble. And the 
sooner he learned to hide, the longer he would 


14 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


remain a secret from the enemies that sur- 
rounded them on every side. 

That is why, one day, no sooner had the 
great red sun gone down behind the poplars, 
and the six babies begun to awaken, and 
squirm about and stretch their legs, and cock 
their ears for some sign of Mammy’s thump- 
ety-thumpety-thump outside, than they felt 
her nuzzling them over and urging them to 
come out for a little gallop across the cornfield. 

‘‘Now, Wriggly Nose, and Flap Ears, and 
Furtive Feet, and Fuzzy Wuzz, and Paddy 
Paws, and Hippity Skip,” said Mammy, as 
soon as she had them lined up in a plowed 
furrow not too far away, “I want you children 
to remember one thing : 

“The best way to escape when you see a 
fox, or a mink, or anything else that looks as 
if he wanted rabbit for breakfast, is just to 
keep perfectly still and pretend to be a clod 
of earth, or a little brown stone, or a hump on 
the root of a tree. Wherever you are, just fold 
back your ears, and shut your eyes all but a 
weenty crack, — so the whites won’t show, — 
and lie as still as field mice, and may-be you 
won’t be seen. That’s cam-ou-flage. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


15 


“There, now — quick !” 
For at this moment she 
spied a pudgy red-brown 
form creeping stealthily 
toward them. 



Ill 

FRISKY FOX GOES HUNTING 

Now the red-brown form that Mammy 
Cottontail had spied creeping so stealthily 
toward them just as she had the six young 
bunnies lined up in the furrow was none other 
than Frisky Fox, — the biggest, fattest pup in 
the Red Fox family. 

“The best way to escape is just to keep 
perfectly still, and pretend to be a clod,” 
Mammy had been telling them. 

“That’s cam-ou-flage.” 

So at her: “There, now — quick!” uttered in 
such a frightened whisper, every last little 
brown bunny of them folded back his ears and 
huddled down in the furrow of the corn-field, 
and kept as still as a mouse. 

Not that mammy herself was the least little 
bit afraid of the fat fox pup. Not for herself! 
— But for the six brown babies crouching in 
the corn-field she was most uneasy, because 
they could neither fight nor run away. And 
even a young fox might catch such tiny 



He will be a mighty hunter" she thought 



TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


17 


rabbits if he but knew they were there. 

As an actual fact, it was not the baby 
bunnies, after all, that Frisky Fox was stalk- 
ing when he frightened Mammy Cottontail. 
It was Shadow Tail, the littlest of Mother 
Douglas Squirrel’s family. 

Not that Frisky was averse to catching 
anything that came his way! The impudent 
young wretch ! Though as for chasing Mammy 
Cottontail, he knew better than to try, for his 
stubby legs were still too wobbly for him to 
have kept up with her for a minute. 

Now Frisky had been making rapid strides 
ever since the Red Fox family had moved 
into the den on the hilltop. From barking at 
his brothers in the sharpest, sauciest kind of 
way, and romping and wrestling and bullying 
them nearly to pieces, and chewing up every- 
thing about the place he could possibly set his 
sharp new teeth in, he had entered the hunting 
field. 

His first catch was a big fat beetle that he 
found hiding under a stone. But he deserved 
no credit for that, — the creature was simply 
too lazy and stupid even to try to get away. 

The next day he caught an infant shrew 


18 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


mouse, whose teeny squeak his sharp ears had 
heard as the creature tried to run from his hole. 

The mouse was not yet old enough to run 
very fast, else Frisky never could have caught 
him, in-ex-pe-ri-enced as he was. None the less 
his mother rewarded him with a warm caress 
of her tongue, and he felt quite proud of 
himself. 

“He will be a mighty hunter,” she thought, 
as the pup tore his kill into just the right 
sized bites and ate it, first tossing each mouth- 
ful into the air, then springing to catch it in 
his open jaws. 

“He will surely get himself into a lot of 
trouble at the rate he is going,” growled 
Father Red Fox, watching him start off 
again. 

And that is how he came to frighten 
Mammy Cottontail and the six wee bunnies 
trembling in the corn-field. 


IV 


WRIGGLY NOSE AND 
THE OWL 

Meantime Mother Red Fox never dreamed 
that the nest in the edge of the meadow shel- 
tered six baby bunnies, who lay hidden under 
the mullein plant, their hind legs growing 
longer and stronger every day, and the nest 
more crowded for them. 

But Whoo Lee, the Great Horned Owl, had 
discovered the secret. Because one night 
Wriggly Nose, the boldest bunny, had wag- 
gled his ears just as Whoo Lee was studying 
the prospects for a hunt from a neighboring 
fence-post. 

Of course, Mammy Cottontail had warned 
them all to keep perfectly quiet when she was 
gone. But then a great big spider had crawled 
up over the edge of the nest, and stared so 
hard that Wriggly Nose flapped his ears in 
the hope of scaring him away. It was at that 
very moment that the great owl’s night- 


20 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


seeing eyes had spied the movement under 
the grasses. 

Now if anything in this world ever looked 
settled and done for, it was at that moment. 

There wasn’t the shadow of a doubt in 
Whoo Lee’s mind but that he should sup on 
fillet of rabbit — and there wasn’t the shadow 
of a doubt in the mind of the six brown 
bunnies about it either, when they heard the 
loud hiss he gave at that moment. 

Of course they didn’t know that if Whoo 
Lee had really been on the point of swooping 
down to nab them, the great bird would have 
slipped through the air without a sound. If 
Mammy Cottontail had been there, she 
would have breathed easier the instant she 
heard that hiss, because she would have 
known that he never hissed except at some- 
thing he was afraid of. 

As an actual fact, Whoo Lee was not the 
only prowler out that night. Thomas, the 
barnyard Cat, was also on a hunting tour, 
and as he moved with the silence of velvet, 
and Whoo Lee had both his round yellow eyes 
glued to the wavering grasses, he never so 
much as dreamed of a tom-cat away off there 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


21 


on the fence between the woods and the 
meadow. 

But Thomas, as luck would have it, leaped 
upon the great brown owl from behind at the 
very instant that Whoo Lee was lifting his 
silent wings for a swoop at Wriggly Nose. 

Such an outcry as rose upon the quiet air! 
The owl promptly flung himself upon his back 
on the ground, defending himself with beak and 
claws, the while he hissed like a snake. The 
big tom-cat, his mouth full of feathers, tried 
to reach for a hold on the great bird's throat, 
spitting and yowling with mingled wrath and 
pain. But he quickly gave it up, having 
decided, after one good nip of the other's 
beak, that the game was not worth the candle. 

How in all this wide world, he asked himself, 
as he raced back to the safe shelter of the 
barn, should he know that the bunch of 
feathers sitting on the fence was not one of the 
silly grouse hens that he sometimes found in 
the woods? How could anybody tell from 
the silky softness of that feathered back that 
such punishing beak and claws might be 
expected on the other side of the creature? So 
Thomas reasoned with himself as he sulked on 


I 22 - TRAIL AND TREE TOP 

top of a rafter, licking his wound. 

But Thomas had, all unknown, come along 
just in time to play the role of Fate for poor 
Wriggly Nose, quaking in his nest under the 
grasses. For the owl, his nerves jarred quite 
out of their usual calm, was sailing silently 
back into the deep woods before ever the five 
bunnies had found out what the noise was all 
about. 

“Yes, you’ve escaped this time,” said 
Mammy Cottontail, when she had heard the 
tale. “But mark my word for it, that owl 
knows where we are now, and he is not the 
bird to give it up so easily.” 



*V I 


V 

FORTUNE FAVORS 
THE BRAVE 

4 ‘No, sir, you never can tell about a bunny. 
You’ll find there’s no two alike once, nor one 
alike twice,” Mother Red Fox assured young 
Frisky as she entered the meadow with the 
five fox pups. 

“But they’re all alike in one way; they all 
rely on their heels. 

“A hare can’t fight — he can’t back into a 
burrow and bare tooth or claw at the enemy, 
so he doesn’t burrow at all. None but the new- 
born can spend their time in hiding, else who 
would keep the larder filled? And if a bunny 
is going to race for his life, he wants the open 
to kick his heels in. That is, of course, unless 
he can reach a briar patch.” 

“Well, there’s a briar patch yonder,” 
Frisky interrupted. “Why doesn’t he stay 
in that all the time?” 

“Use your wits, my son! You’ve got to 
use your wits if you really want to grow up 


24 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


into a regular fox! I’m going to let you find 
that out for yourself.” 

“Now, you four pups stay where you are 
this time and watch. Frisky, see how I do it, 
then try it for yourself,” and without more 
ado Mother Red Fox darted straight at a 
brown hum-mock that seemed to stand up 
above the surrounding level. 

It proved to be Mammy Cottontail herself, 
for her sensitive black nose had already 
warned her of the approach of the musky- 
scented ones, and, anxious for her children’s 
sakes, she had approached as near the enemy 
as she deemed it safe, — and nearer, — that she 
might give the warning thump -thump of 
her heels, and tell the six young bunnies 
which way to retreat. 

“Hide, if you can,” she had instructed 
them; “but should they spy you out, dash for 
the briar patch ! ” 

Now, only the day before, Mammy Cotton- 
tail had led her six through the rabbit road 
that wound like a mystic maze through the 
sweet-briar vines on the edge of the woods. 
Thanks to the industry of Daddy and Mam- 
my, and a score of uncles and cousins, a 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


25 


narrow run-way had here been nibbled with 
pains-taking care. Each member of the 
cottontail fra-ter-ni-ty had taken his turn at 
cutting the stems of vines close to the ground, 
in a pathway just wide enough for a cottontail, 
and not one bit wider. 

First a little road led in from the edge of the 
meadow. Shortly a new path branched off at 
right angles, and this one branched again. On 
and on they traveled through the maze, never 
following any one path to its conclusion, but 
turning this way and that, seem-ing-ly as fancy 
dic-ta-ted,till the little Cottontails would have 
been completely lost, had it not been for 
Mammy’s scent, hot on the trail before them. 

Mammy, of course, knew just where she was 
every minute, for had not she herself helped to 
lay out the green briar tunnels? 

Wherefore, no sooner had Mother Red Fox 
spied Mammy in the moonlight than Mammy 
dashed straight for the shelter of the briar- 
patch, her pursuer scarce the length of one 
good leap behind her. 

Could she make it? Her heart pounded as 
the steel springs in her hind legs sent her 
forward ten feet at every bound ! 


26 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


Would she make it? The six bunnies 
watching from their coverts asked them- 
selves, with legs trembling under them at the 
red peril so close behind her. 



VI 


WRIGGLY NOSE DOES 
A TURN 

Heart pounding against her ribs, lungs 
bursting with effort, and soft eyes wide with 
terror, Mammy Cottontail put all her 
strength into the great bounds that carried 
her nearer and nearer the maze of green-briar ! 

She had a very little head start of Mother 
Red Fox, and they were just nip and tuck for 
speed ! 

Ah, she had made it! She dashed in so 
feverishly that she tore her fur on a thorn, 
and all but went head on into the briars, 
instead of into the narrow rabbit road. 

Here she at once breathed easier, though 
she no-wise relaxed her speed, for the fox was 
following fairly within snapping distance of 
her heels. Still, the narrow road was pretty 
hard on a full-grown fox, for the brambles 
combed her sides un-pity-ing-ly, im-pal-ing 
red tufts of fur to mark her progress. 


28 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


Mammy turned this way and that, Mother 
Red Fox following with her nose. Then 
Mammy doubled on her tracks, while Mother 
Red Fox darted straight ahead, too bent on 
covering the ground to note that there was no 
longer any scent to guide her, till Mammy had 
had time to breathe and re-con-noi-tre for 
another ruse. 

Then suddenly Mother Red Fox, seeing 
what had happened, (and from long experience 
with briar patches,) decided to withdraw 
down the first road that led outside. Then 
she would circle the patch and watch till 
Mammy should emerge! And she licked her 
sides ruefully where the thorns had taken toll. 

Meantime what of Wriggly Nose and Paddy 
Paws and Furtive Feet and the rest of 
Mammy’s brood? 

No sooner had Mammy reached the briar- 
patch than Wriggly Nose espied young Frisky, 
the fox pup, sniffing in the direction of his own 
par-tic-ul-ar form; and though he knew by 
this time that he looked just like a tuft of with- 
ered grass on the little knoll from which he had 
his outlook, he thought it best to make his 
get-a-way. 





“Ah! She made it.” 











TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


29 


So he started toward the briar patch in the 
way Mammy had just dem-on-stra-ted, trying 
his youthful best to make his untrained legs 
attempt the mon-u-men-tal leaps Mammy 
had been ex-e-cut-ing. 

His first catch was a big fat beetle. 

Whoo Lee had discovered the secret. 


Could she make it? Her heart pounded, — 
turning three complete somersaults. 



VII 

WRIGGLY HEADS A 
MERRY CHASE 

For a fact! Young Wriggly Nose was even 
more surprised than Frisky Fox, when he 
first tried that powerful spring of his long 
hind legs, for which the cottontail hares are 
famous. 

For, losing his balance in mid-air, he turned 
three somersaults before ever he came down 
again! 

Frisky was so interested watching the 
ma-noeuv-re that he forgot to chase him! 
Yes, sir, young Frisky Fox was so as-tound-ed 
at the way the brown bunny turned those 
som-er-saults that he forgot the chase in 
wondering if Wriggly Nose would ever come 
down again ! 

At the next leap Wriggly surprised himself 
again by bounding into the air full five times 
his height, and landing ten times the length 
of his body beyond, — an ordinary stunt for a 
cottontail, only he did not know it ! 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


31 


This was easy! — Now that he was growing 
ac-cus-tomed to the powers within him, he all 
but forgot his fear in the delight of the running 
high jump, — so much so, in fact, that he sped 
clear past the tiny run-way Mammy had 
taken into the briar patch, and had to take 
another further on. 

Now, Mammy Cottontail had just begun 
to think her troubles over, having hidden so 
suc-cess-ful-ly in the briar-patch that Mother 
Red Fox had given up the chase. 

But here was new cause for worry! Could 
Wriggly find his way safely through the 
briar -patch, or would young Frisky run him 
down before her very eyes? 

No, — not if Wriggly’s mother could pre- 
vent! There was but one thing to be done. 
Darting along the tangled runways, she 
dashed straight between pursuer and pursued. 
And because young Frisky got her scent so 
strong in his nostrils, he lost the fainter scent 
of the younger hare, and found he had nothing 
left to do but to follow Mammy herself. 

The rest was easy, so far as Mammy was 
concerned. She had been clever enough to 
throw Frisky’s mother off the trail, and she 


32 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


soon had young Frisky so dis-cour-aged that 
he was glad enough to find his way out again 
into the open meadow. 

Where was Wriggly, meanwhile? Having 
darted here and there and everywhere, just as 
he thought Mammy had the day before, with- 
out rhyme or reason, he soon found himself 
utterly lost. It was a mystic maze, indeed, — 
that briar patch, — with its little paths branch- 
ing in every con-ceiv-a-ble direction. 

Nothing short of long experience could 
have told him where he was, nor which way to 
turn. 

He stopped and reared himself on his long 
hind legs, brown ears pointed forward, and 
wriggled his sen-si-tive nose. 

What had become of Frisky Fox? 

And where-ever was he, anyway, and what 
was going to happen next? 

Little did he know who stood at that very 
moment peering at him from the path 
adjoining ! 

It was Mammy herself. 


VIII 

MAMMY COTTONTAIL TO 
THE RESCUE 

Never had things looked quite so dark to 
Wriggly Nose, the little brown Hare, as they 
did at that moment ! 

Not only was he hopelessly lost in the briar 
patch, but he supposed young Frisky Fox was 
still hot on his trail. 

So great had been his terror as he leaped 
through the little green roadways before his 
pursuer, that he had not seen Mammy Cotton- 
tail lead Frisky off in quite another direction. 
Nor could he know that Frisky had been 
forced to give it up, and find his way out of 
the briar patch as best he might. 

No, to the little brown bunny panting at the 
turn of the run-way, it was his first real 
ad-ven-ture, and there wasn’t a lonelier, more 
frightened little hare that side of Mount Olaf. 

Then, rearing himself on his long hind legs 
to take a look about him, he suddenly saw a 
pair of bright eyes peering at him from the 


34 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


path adjoining. He started with surprise. It 
was Mammy herself ! 

Sig-nall-ing him with sub-dued little taps of 
her heels, she cautiously directed him where to 
cross over to her side ; and she was soon licking 
his scratched face re-as-sur-ing-ly. 

“We’re all right,” she breathed into his 
long brown ea'r, her velvet nose laid close to 
his. “The foxes are both outside now, waiting 
for us to appear. But we’ll fool them, we will ! 
They’ll have a long wait if they sit there till 
we leave this briar patch! If they are count- 
ing on rabbit for supper, they will go hungry 
this time, if Mammy knows anything about it !” 

She rose to her hind legs to peek at Mother 
Red Fox and her son, who were trotting 
anxiously around and around the briar-patch. 

“But, Mammy,” quavered Wriggly Nose, 
still sniffing at the musky odor that clung to 
the air, “What if they should come back in 
after us again?” 

“Child,” said Mammy proudly, “Don’t I 
know this place? If we have to run for it 
again, you just stay close at my heels, and 
we’ll come out all right.” 

“Might as well get a bite of supper our- 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


35 


selves,” and she began nibbling the young 
briar shoots as far as she could reach. 

As Wriggly’s heart calmed down to normal, 
he once more became conscious of the sights 
and sounds and fragrances that had made the 
meadow such a happy place until the foxes 
came. 

The bright moon shone down through the 
tangle of briars above their heads, glinting off 
the dew drops till every vine was strung with 
jewels. 

The moist soil and the new, young grass 
gave out an alluring odor. To his sensitive 
nostrils there was just a hint of wild cherry 
blossoms in the fringe of the woods, and from 
Pollywog pond the song of the hylas mingled 
weirdly with the croaking of larger frogs. 

A fat, brown toad came hopping down the 
little pathway, darting his barbed red tongue 
at every insect that crossed his path, and 
blinking as he swallowed. 

A whirr of wings sounded softly overhead. 
Mammy suddenly rose again to peer off at 
the enemy. 

4 ‘What is it?” gasped Wriggly nervously, 
as she gave a sudden start. 


IX 


THE OWL COMES BACK 

Mammy Cottontail, the Hare, standing 
a-tip-toe in the briar patch as she took a look 
about, started violently. For just outside, in 
the moonlit meadow, stood Mother Red Fox 
and young Frisky Fox. 

“Come!” Mammy was just signalling the 
little bunny at her side, with a nuzzling of 
of her brown, velvety nose. But for once her 
fears were groundless. The two foxes had 
had enough of the briar-patch for that time. 

“I’m so hungry,” Frisky Fox was whim- 
pering. “If we can’t have rabbit, why can’t 
we go and catch frogs?” 

“Come, then,” agreed Mother Red Fox, 
licking her fur where she had scratched it in 
the briar-patch. 1 “You’ve learned how not to 
chase a rabbit, anyway,” and she trotted back 
to the four smaller pups, who waited like 
o-be-di-ent bright-eyed shadows just where 
she had left them. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


37 


Seven wriggling black noses, and seven 
pairs of long brown ears noted their depar- 
ture, as the fox family trotted back across 
the meadow. Mammy and Wriggly Nose 
came hopping back from the briar-patch 
to go the rounds of the five little forms, 
where five brown bunnies waited silently in 
the dew-sweet April night. 

“But where is Daddy Cottontail?” asked 
Mammy. “What has become of your father?” 

Where, indeed, was Daddy Cottontail 
throughout the night’s adventure, when — if 
ever — his little family needed his protection? 

You may be sure he was having troubles 
of his own ! 

Before ever Mammy had spied the foxes 
searching out her little ones, — just as the full 
moon rising, behind the woods had lightened 
the growing dusk, — Daddy had hopped forth 
from behind a mullein plant to nibble a 
supper of new clover. 

Suddenly he spied a shadow flapping 
soundlessly across the moon. 

“Whoo Lee, the Owl!” Daddy told himself, 
freezing as motionless as a little brown 
stump. 


38 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


He was afraid to run to cover, for fear of 
attracting the attention of one whose night- 
seeing eyes saw every motion from even high 
in air, and whose great round ear could hear 
the faintest rustle in the grass. 

Daddy well knew that the Great Barred 
Owl had ears that reach in a circle clear round 
each eye, one ear timed to hear the louder 
sounds of his enemies, the other ear so fine and 
delicate that it could hear the sound a mouse 
makes scampering through the grass. 

Small hope had Daddy Cottontail of escap- 
ing observation, should he move a hair’s 
breadth from where he crouched. He might 
as well try to escape Fate itself, as well he 
knew. His mother before him had taught 
him that before he was weaned. 

Of all the enemies that bunnies have to face, 
the great barred owl is the worst. From him 
there is no escape save under a briar-patch. 

So you can imagine how scared Daddy was. 
He was almost afraid, as he crouched there in 
the grasses trying not to tremble, that the 
wizard Owl would hear the very thump of his 
heart beats. 

Claws outspread for a sudden swoop. 


X 

THE OWL FINDS HIS QUARRY 

Yes, sir! Daddy Cottontail, the little brown 
Hare, was having troubles of his own ! 

These moonlight nights are great times for 
hunting, as Daddy knew. He had not planned 
to go far afield, but no sooner had he reached 
the open meadow than that soft shadow 
flapped soundlessly across the moon. Daddy 
knew it was the owl, — because no other bird 
could fly so soundlessly. 

He was too far from the briar-patch to 
make a sudden dash for its thorny shelter. He 
could never in this world out-distance those 
swift wings, if it came to a race across the 
meadow, for Whoo Lee was faster than any 
creature on four legs. 

Then, too, the briar-patch lay in quite the 
wrong direction. The Owl was nearer it than 
Daddy now, and there seemed nothing better 
to do than to stay where he was, and pretend 
to be a stump. 

But his knees were tense, ready to shoot him 


40 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


like coiled springs into the race for life, should 
the great Owl suddenly see through his cam- 
ou-flage, and realise that he was not the 
brown stump he pre-ten-ded to be. 

Daddy sighed, as he counted his chances. 
He had certainly had one series of adventure 
since the day he was bom. 

Ah, well, the little bunnies would soon be 
grown, and Mammy would be able to see them 
through, if anything dreadful were to happen! 

Then his heart gave a throb of relief : Whoo 
Lee was circling back again. But no, — here he 
came, his great round eyes piercing every 
shadowed hum-mock in the meadow, in his 
careful search for quarry. 

Faster than the wind he flew, his long 
feathered legs hanging ready, with claws out- 
spread for a sudden swoop, his beak curved 
like a sabre, and his eyes seeming to take up 
his whole face, so immense they appeared in 
the slanting moon-light. 

Around and around he drifted, like the 
very ghost of an owl, the soft plumage on the 
giant wings making no more sound than a 
moon-beam. The hylas, away off in Pollywog 
Pond, sang to their polly-wogs with the 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


41 


weird sound of fairy sleigh bells in the 
still night air. But Whoo Lee, for all his 
mammoth size, would not have raised even a 
whisper of his nearness with his own down-clad 
wings. 

Then, so suddenly that Daddy's heart came 
clear up in his throat, and stuck there, cutting 
off his breath, — Whoo Lee was above him! 

It had come ! 

A thousand thoughts flashed through Dad- 
dy’s mind, as he prepared for the doom that 
would descend upon him. Would there, then, 
be no more wakings in the glow of sunrise, 
with Betty Blue-bird singing, and the grass 
a-hum with cheerful insects? No more lus- 
cious clover, no more raids on the garden at 
the Valley Farm, no more moonlight frolics 
with his fellow Cottontails? Surely life was 
far too wonderful to be snapped off thus, to 
make supper for an owl! 

But — Whoo Lee was just above him ! Was 
there a fighting chance? 


XI 

NEVER SAY DIE 

“Never say die,” said Daddy Cottontail, 
the little brown Hare, as he realized that 
Whoo Lee, the Owl, had discovered his hiding. 

There didn’t seem a chance in the world, 
for the great barred owl was swifter than a 
fox and fiercer than a lynx. Besides, it was 
too late to run away, with Whoo Lee all but 
upon him! 

Daddy had spied the owl from the instant 
his great wings had crossed the path of the 
moon, and in those moments of waiting 
every possible means of escape had revolved 
in his feverish mind. 

He had hoped against hope that his cam- 
ou-flage might work, and Whoo Lee take 
him for a still brown stump. But there was 
still another chance, — if such a last straw 
could be called a chance, — and he meant to 
die trying for it, if need be. 

Full ten feet away stood a thorny little 
wild rose bush not yet in bloom. Once under 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


43 


that, provided he could make it in one last 
leap, the Owl might or might not be able to 
reach him. Thorns are the one thing that 
owls will not take chances with. 

So now as Whoo Lee swooped upon him, 
Daddy gave one monstrous leap, tense muscles 
pro-pell-ing him like an arrow shot from a bow ! 

A burning pain tore through his leg as he 
made the thorn bush, but it was the clutch 
of the thorns, not the Owl, and Daddy 
crouched in the very heart of the bush while 
the dis-ap-point-ed owl circled around and 
around him without quite daring the punish- 
ing briars. 

Then away down across the farther end of 
the meadow there was a faint scurry, as 
some bunny neighbor, not hearing Whoo Lee's 
silent flight, sallied forth to sup on clover. 
There was but the pause of an instant, and 
the Owl had darted like a bolt of lightning 
at the spot where issued the tiny sound, — 
and then Daddy heard a despairing squeak, 
and his heart filled with pity, as he saw a 
long-eared form limply hanging from the 
great bird's claws. And Whoo Lee bore the 
neighbor bunny swiftly away. 


44 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


Over meadow and corn-field, barn-yard and 
orchard, higher and higher and higher in the 
path of the moon they went. Now Whoo 
Lee had sailed over the tops of the deep woods 
that climbed Mount Olaf, drifting above the 
pine trees like a gray-winged ghost, till at 
last he paused in the top of the tallest pine. 

Daddy’s heart calmed down to its normal 
beat as he realized that he was saved. But 
he never would cross the meadow again with- 
out the memory of that still, limp form that 
Whoo Lee had carried away to his tree-top. 

“There are no two ways about it,” he told 
Mammy, as he finally joined his little family. 
“We must take the children somewhere else. 
That is twice Whoo Lee has been here, and 
he’ll surely come again!” 

“Why, Daddy,” exclaimed Mammy, with 
a welcoming rub of her soft black nose, “that 
is just what I have been thinking! I certainly 
don’t like the idea of all these new young 
foxes! Now they have found out where we 
live, the children are not safe an instant. 
I’ve got the finest plan! Let’s go and take a 
look at that old stone wall that runs along the 
orchard!” 


XII 


THE COTTONTAILS FIND 
NEW QUARTERS 

“No, sir,” said Mammy Cottontail, as she 
thought of the six brown bunnies that looked 
to her for protection, “I certainly don’t like 
the idea of all those new young foxes having 
found out where we live. 

“You can just take my word for it, Daddy 
Cottontail, we’ll never raise Wriggly Nose 
and Flap Ears and Paddy Paws and Fuzzy- 
Wuzz and Furtive Feet and Hippity Skip in 
an open meadow like this! 

“Whoo Lee, the Owl, was bad enough, 
but Whoo Lee and Mother Red Fox and 
Frisky Fox and the whole fox family are too 
much to take a chance with. 

“I’d rather risk living near those human 
creatures at the Valley Farm! Come, 
children, let’s go and take a look at the Old 
Stone Wall,” and she and Daddy led their 
six across the meadow and the corn-field, 


46 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


around the sleeping barn-yard and into the 
old apple orchard without more ado. 

Here, around three sides, stretched the old 
stone wall that Mammy had set her heart 
upon. 

“See!” she pointed out to her little family, 
as the first pink of dawn began to flush the 
sky. “There is no end to the crannies and 
crevices we can back into, behind these tall 
grasses. We can see and not be seen, and 
nothing can ever come on us from behind. 
We can doze all day in perfect safety.” 

Daddy gave one look about the smiling 
orchard, with its canopy of apple blossoms, 
in which a chorus of birds was already tuning 
up; and he fairly capered with joy. Wriggly 
Nose and the other babies raced giddily 
about looking for the best places. 

“But — have you forgotten Barn-yard 
Thomas, the black cat, and Lop Ear the 
Hound?” asked Daddy, coming to a sudden 
standstill. 

“Well, we’ve always got to take some kind 
of chance,” sighed Mammy, settling her 
brown back into a niche from which she 
could look down the slope at the Valley Farm. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


47 


“It must be a pretty safe place, or all these 
birds wouldn’t be lo-cat-ing here,” and she 
pointed out the nest-building going on every- 
where about them. 

“That’s right,” agreed Daddy, and he 
began his break-fast on a patch of clover with 
a mind at rest. 

Meantime, what had become of the un- 
for-tu-nate hare that Whoo Lee had caught 
and carried off in the moon-light? 

Away up in the top of the tallest pine-tree 
of the deep woods that climbed Mount Olaf, 
two of the downiest Owl babies that ever 
greeted the spring waited hun-gri-ly, their 
great spec-tac-led eyes peering sol-emn-ly over 
the moonlit spaces that their wings were still 
too weak to try. 

Like all wil-der-ness babies, they kept 
perfectly still during their parents’ absence, 
lest some prowler of the night should spy them 
out and make short work of them. 


XIII 

YOUNG TIMOTHY AND 
THOMAS 

Time passed. The Old Apple Orchard 
turned from pink-white blossom to leaf-green, 
and then to the red of early apples, spicy- 
fragrant in the summer sunshine. 

Mammy Cottontail had lived under the 
Old Stone Wall ever since Wriggly Nose and 
his brothers were tiny babies. 

Those youngsters had long since learned 
to look out for themselves, though they still 
had their forms socially near. But now there 
was a new brown baby to bring up in the way 
he should go. In fact, there had been five, 
along about the first of August, but Writho 
the Black Snake had swallowed one, and Lop 
Ear, the Hound at the Valley Farm had 
caught another and Barnyard Tom another, — 
and one had drowned in a big rain-storm. 

So Mammy Cottontail was mighty careful 
of wee Timothy. For he was all that was left 
for her to take care of. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


49 


He was a bright-eyed little fellow, as 
downy as a kitten, and so tiny that he might 
have been taken for a little brown clod of 
earth,- — a splendid cam-ou-flage. 

And it was lucky he had some means of 
protecting himself in the world in which he 
found himself, as he peered through the pink 
sweet-clover beneath which his mother had 
hidden him. 

For it was a world in which he had more 
enemies than he could have counted on all 
his twenty toes. And every one of them was 
fond of rabbit meat. 

There was Barnyard Thomas, the black 
Cat, to name only the nearest one, who now 
that he had proven himself a champion 
mouser by ridding the barn of rats, had taken 
to hunting wilder game. 

The day on which Timothy had his first 
adventure had dawned cool and misty, and 
he had snuggled down under his little fur 
blanket, — made from his mother’s breast, — 
and gone to sleep as soon as she had left 
him. 

He was awakened by an uncanny feeling 
that some danger was approaching. 


50 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


There certainly was a peculiar rustling in 
the tall grasses that he hadn’t noticed before. 
Then, too, his wonderful little black nose told 
him that there was something there besides 
the sweet-clover and the apple trees and the 
moist brown earth. 

Bunnies have keener noses than the best 
of human beings, and they surely need them 
to help keep them safe. 

Timothy crouched lower on his fuzzy little 
legs, laying his ears back close to his round 
head in his effort to lay low, as his mother had 
cautioned him to. But the rustling grew 
nearer and nearer, and Timothy, peering wide- 
eyed through the clover, saw a huge whiskered 
black form creeping forward, with yellow 
eyes that searched this way and that. 

Timothy crouched still further into the 
clover, — which was against all his mother’s 
teachings, as she had bade him over and over 
again, when frightened, to make no move at 
all, but to lie like a clod. 

Perhaps Thomas would have found him 
anyway, — for it was the barn-yard cat. — 
Thomas had a nose as keen as Timothy’s, and 
he could smell a rabbit as easily as a mouse. 



“A black shadow with cruel black eyes was 
creeping.” 




































• 






TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


51 


The next thing the little brown bunny 
knew, that sleek black form had launched 
itself at him with a bound, and he just 
managed to dodge the curved claws that 
grasped at him. 

“Help! Help!” he shrilled, with all his 
might. “Mammy! Mammy! Help!” 

And Mammy heard, though it took one of 
her prize jumps to reach the scene in time. 

“Gr-r-r-r! What can a rabbit like you do 
to ME?” growled Thomas, making another 
pounce for Timothy. 



XIV 

A GOOD FIGHT 

What, indeed, could a little brown Hare 
like Mammy Cottontail do to save her baby 
from Barnyard Thomas? 

For the cat was twice her size, and armed 
with both teeth and claws, besides which hers 
were no com-par-i-son. 

Yet there was wee Timothy, almost within 
the tom-cat’s clutches. And now the cat 
HAD pounced upon him, holding him between 
his paws, teeth bared to end the matter. 

To a wild mother, nothing is impossible. 
She had her heels, — those long hind feet with 
which she made the mammoth leaps that 
carried a rabbit out of danger’s way. And 
she was ready to give her own life to save 
Timothy’s. 

Straight at Thomas’s head she leapt. And 
thwack! came those long hind feet of hers 
straight across his sen-sit-ive nose! 

Thomas blinked and spat. But again she 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


53 


leapt, this time giving him a blinding blow 
across the eyes. 

The old cat caught his breath with surprise, 
and struck at her with his claws. But she 
came a third time. Bing! She landed a 
heavy blow across his nose again. And this 
she repeated again and again, hopping about 
the intruder so swiftly and so un-ex-pect-ed-ly 
that he was half blinded, and his nose quite 
battered. 

At last Thomas had had enough, and he 
dropped the baby bunny in order to punish 
the mother. But she had been expecting this, 
and leapt away from him in time. She 
didn’t leap too fast for him to follow, though, 
for she wanted to lead him clear away from 
Timothy. 

As for that wee ball of down, once Thomas’s 
back was turned, he crept into a crevice 
of the old stone wall behind a clump of 
grasses. 

Of course, Mammy easily out-dis-tanced 
Thomas, once she saw that her baby was 
safe. In fact, she gave him something to 
remember by leading him straight to a briar- 
patch in the edge of the woods, where that 


54 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


sleek rascal tore his fur before he realized 
that he was needed back at the barn. 

The next thing Timothy knew, Mammy 
was signalling with a thump of her long hind 
foot for him to follow where her little white 
bunch of tail showed the way, — and raising 
his own tiny flag behind him, he hopped after 
her as fast as he could make it, till they were 
in the deep woods, where Thomas never 
ventured. 

The apple orchard, with its Old Stone Wall, 
had been in some respects an ideal home, 
for the crevices in the wall had given Mammy 
a chance to lie safely hidden on all sides but 
one, while she kept an outlook over the tops 
of the grasses. But where Thomas had been 
once, he would come again! And that would 
never do. Besides, there was Lop Ear the 
Hound, who might come to look the orchard 
over again any day. 

On the other hand, the woods were full 
of enemies of every kind, from bears to foxes. 


XV 


IN THE CABBAGE PATCH 

The woods were even better than the 
orchard, declared Timothy, Mammy Cotton- 
tail^ littlest bunny, as he followed her snow- 
white tail. 

The sky had cleared, and everything about 
them was a chorus of color and perfume. 

Just a little inside the edge of the forest, 
the people from the Valley Farm had made a 
clearing. Here the meadow stretched up one 
side of a gentle hill and down the other. 

At the very top of this rise of ground 
Mammy stopped and looked about her. On 
four sides of the plowed field stretched a 
border of woodland, while along the side to- 
ward Mount Olaf the stones had all been 
piled in a rough stone wall over which wild 
blackberries sent their thorny arms. 

That meant that Mammy could see any one 
approaching a long way off, while if worst 
came to worst, she and Timothy could easily 


56 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


scuttle to some crevice in the stones, behind 
a thorny vine. 

She was almost tempted to take up her 
quarters in some crevice in the wall itself, but 
that it made her think of the Old Orchard Wall 
where Timothy had so nearly met his end. 

Straight down the middle of the field ran 
rows of winter cabbages, while potatoes 
flanked the sides. Under the spreading 
leaves of a mammoth cabbage she and 
Timothy decided they would be quite safe, — 
except, of course, when the Hired Man from 
the Valley Farm came around to weed. But 
he was no one to be afraid of, — one could 
always hear him half a mile away. 

“Well, little son, how do you like our new 
home?” Mammy asked, noting Timothy’s 
wide-eyed wonder. 

“Great!” said Timothy, standing up on 
his little hind legs and gazing first at the 
plowed furrows with their luscious cabbages, 
and the sweet clovers growing like weeds 
between the rows, then at the green border 
of the forest, and finally at the blue sky with 
its cooling wind clouds arching over all. 

On a clover almost within reach, a yellow 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


57 


and black butterfly danced contentedly. In 
a choke-cherry tree that reached half over 
the stone wall, a pair of catbirds were holding 
a conversation; while from a tangle of wild 
grapevine that climbed over the reddening 
sumac further on, a yellow warbler sang to 
his mate. And a fat yellow-vested bumble- 
bee, who was exploring the velvet spikes of the 
sumac, added his deep bass to the chorus. 

But there is seldom found an Eden without 
its serpent. It was so in this case. And it 
was well for Mammy Cottontail that she 
hadn’t decided on the old stone wall for her 
head-quarters. For it was already tenanted 
by someone who cared nothing for the out- 
look, — some one long and slim and shiny 
black, — whose skin felt cold and slimy. 

It was Writho the Black Snake! 


XVI 

A COUNCIL OF WAR 

“Oh, deary me, whatever shall I do?” 
sighed Mammy Cottontail, the little brown 
Hare, as she spied Writho the Black Snake 
asleep on the old stone wall. 

She must have spoken aloud, in her dismay, 
though she had supposed herself quite alone. 

“Hello, there! What’s the trouble now?” 
asked a hoarse voice from the pine tree under 
which she had made the discovery. 

It was Jimmy, the great black Crow, who 
had been watching with a dozen of his fol- 
lowers. 

“My, how you startled me!” exclaimed 
Mammy Cottontail, peering up into the dark 
branches. “Is that you, Jim Crow?” 

“At your service, Ma’am! Entirely at 
your service!” the hoarse voice replied. “What 
can I do for you?” 

“Oh, Jimmy,” wailed Mammy Cottontail, 
“just look at Writho over there asleep! How 
ever in this world can I bring Timothy up in a 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


59 


field that Writho uses for his hunting ground? 
“I’ve just been driven from one good 
home, — in the old apple orchard. And if 
it wasn’t for Writho this place would be ideal !” 

‘‘Where are you located?” asked Jimmy, 
sympathetically. 

“Right up there on the top of that little 
hill, under a cabbage leaf,” sighed Mammy. 
“We can see an enemy approaching from a 
long way off, — that is, anyone that comes on 
four legs. And if necessary we can run 
straight down the row under the cabbage 
leaves till we get to the old stone wail. Once 
there, we can creep into some crevice behind 
a blackberry vine, — for Father Red Fox him- 
self wouldn’t risk his fur in the brambles.” 

“Weil, then, I don’t see but what we’ll 
just simply have to get rid of Writho,” said 
Jimmy, folding his black wings as if the 
matter were settled. 

“We’ll have to get rid of Writho,” chorused 
the twelve black crows, to whom Jimmy’s 
word was law. 

“But how?” wailed Mammy Cottontail. 
“I could beat him off with my heels if he 
caught my Timothy, the way I did Thomas, 


60 


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the black cat, but I couldn’t kill him, and 
he’d only wait for another chance. 

“It is a case for using one’s wits,” said 
Jimmy. “Let me think! I have it! Look 
here, Sister Cottontail, you just wait here 
till we come back!” and off he flew with the 
twelve behind him, so fast that Mammy 
could only stare after them in amazement. 

“What is it, Mammy?” piped Timothy, 
hopping down between the cabbages to his 
mother’s side. 

“You, child, go right back home this 
instant! Didn’t Mammy tell you to stay in 
bed until she came?” exclaimed Mammy in 
alarm. “Quick, now, before Writho wakes 
up and sees you,” and she leapt at the little 
fellow with a blow of her long hind feet that 
ef-fec-tu-al-ly boxed his ears. 

“You must learn to obey! It is life and 
death if you don’t!” she added, as the little 
brown ball of fuzz went hip-pity-skip back 
through the cabbages. 

There was a rustle of wings overhead, as 
Jimmy and his flock came back. But this 
time they said never a word, for in each of 
their beaks they carried a queer little twig. 


XVII 

POISON !~BE WARE ! 

“What have you there?” asked Mammy 
Cottontail, as the crows alighted in front of 
her, each with an odd little twig in his bill, 
and his eyes half closed. 

“Poison! — Beware!” announced Jimmy 
Crow, dropping his twig on the ground before 
him, and immediately backing off from it 
with tears in his eyes. And “Poison!” an- 
nounced his comrades, dropping theirs in the 
same way. 

“It is a case for using one’s wits,” Jimmy 
declared. (For Mammy Cottontail had ap- 
pealed to him about Writho, the Black Snake.) 

“We’re going to make this cabbage patch 
perfectly safe for your baby,” continued 
Jimmy, comfortingly, with a glance to the 
hill-top where wee Timothy lay hidden under 
a leaf. 

“How? Will these poison Writho?” asked 
Mammy, wide-eyed. “Is that the way you 


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thought of making the cabbage patch safe for 
my baby?” 

“Well, not exactly,” smiled Jimmy, with 
a wise look. “You see, he wouldn’t actually 
eat it ! — That’s the only way it would kill him.” 

“I’m so glad!” gasped Mammy. For she 
couldn’t bear to hurt even an enemy unless 
she had to. 

“But the old snake can’t hop over these 
weeds, and he can’t fly over, and he can’t 
wriggle past without thrusting his face straight 
into them.” 

“What would that do?” asked Mammy, 
her eyes fairly popping out of her head. 
“Would they sting him?” 

“Would they sting him?” mocked Jimmy. 
“These things would put his eyes out, if he 
thrust his nose into them. I’ll bet if he had 
to take his choice between going hungry and 
crawling through these after Timothy, he’d 
go hungry every time!” 

“Now, fellows, let’s drop them in a circle 
around that big cabbage up there, — but not 
too close, — and then Mammy and Timothy 
can jump over them, but Writho can’t crawl 
through.” 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


63 


“Plow did you ever think of it?” asked 
Mammy Cottontail. “You are the cleverest 
bird I know!” 

“Oh, I’m a wise old crow,” said Jimmy, 
throwing his chest out. “Just call on me, 
any time you are in trouble: — As for this 
poison, it’s generally been kept a secret, 
except among us bird-folk. 

“And then it wouldn’t do any one else the 
slightest bit of good, because no one knows 
where to find these plants, — but look out and 
hop clear of the stuff, or you’ll be sorry!” 

And once more taking his twig in his beak, 
he led the twelve black crows to the hill-top, 
where they laid their poison circle around the 
cabbages. 

“Now just don’t let Timothy get caught 
outside that circle!” he cautioned Mammy 
Cottontail, before leading his followers back 
to the pine tree, “and you’ve nothing to fear 
from Writho.” 

“Indeed, I’ll see that he never goes any- 
where alone!” declared Mammy solemnly 
“Not till he knows more about the woods.” 

“That’s my advice!” shouted Jimmy over 
his shoulder. 


XVIII 

THROUGH THE BARBED 
WIRE 

Now Mammy Cottontail had never been 
far into the woods. She did not know that 
just where the Old Logging Road turned to- 
ward Silver Creek lay Pollywog Pond. And 
behind the pond was a swamp filled with 
skunk cabbages and Jack-in-the-pulpits, and 
tall ferns. 

And in the very heart of the swamp was a 
quick-sand — a wet, sticky place where one’s 
feet would sink in deeper and deeper, until 
one went clear under, head and all, and never 
came up again. 

There are very few places of that sort, at 
least in this kind of country, thank goodness ! 
But those few are mighty dangerous. For 
one might as well drown as get drawn into a 
quick-sand. In fact, it wouldn’t be half so 
unpleasant. 

Because it was so dangerous for everyone, 
man and beast alike, the people at the Valley 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


65 


Farm had run a barbed wire fence around 
this quick-sand, — though the wild roses had 
grown up so thick around it that one could 
scarcely tell it was there until one came up 
plump! against the thorny wires. 

Then one day Mammy found the hound on 
her trail. And she would have lost her head 
entirely and run right around in a circle, and 
Lop Ear would have caught her, but that 
Jimmy Crow kept just above the tree- tops 
advising her of the best way to go. 

“Bow-ow-ow-ow !” screamed Lop Ear 
almost at her heels. 

“Straight ahead! Straight ahead !” shrilled 
Jimmy and the twelve black crows, “Straight 
ahead !” 

And Mammy kept straight ahead, though 
it took her down the Old Logging Road, past 
Pollywog Pond, and on into the swamp. 

“Now!” yelled Jimmy, as they neared the 
quick-sand. “Straight through the fence, — 
but stop the minute you get on the other 
side.” 

And because Mammy trusted so fully to 
Jimmy’s wisdom, she nerved herself for the 
effort. Indeed, what else was there to do? 


66 


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She had often led Lop Ear into the Briar 
Patch, but she had never dared this before, 
although just inside the fence was a narrow rim 
of solid ground before the quick-sand began. 

It was a desperate chance to take, for if she 
were to lose her footing on the other side, 
and get stuck in the mire, it would be all up 
with her. Besides, what if she should get her 
fur caught on the barbs? 

“Yow-ow-ow!” yelled Lop Ear, coming on 
pell-mell. 

“Could she makeit ,, P she asked herself. She 
must dart between the close-set wires, full 
speed, — then stop short. 

The next instant she had leapt straight as 
an arrow through the wild rose bushes, wires 
and all ! 



XIX 


JIMMY FOOLS THE HOUND 

No sooner had Mammy Cottontail assured 
herself that she had escaped the Hound than 
a new terror chilled her blood. 

“The Bear! The Bear! Look out for the 
Bear!” Jimmy Crow began calling to her 
from his cedar tree. 

As if it wasn’t quite bad enough to be hid- 
ing so close to a quick-sand that would suck 
one straight down into the mud and never 
let go, if she moved an inch! 

Then her frightened eyes beheld Lop Ear 
making off as fast as he could go, with his 
tail between his legs, while Jimmy laughed 
as if his sides would split. 

“That’s once I fooled that dog,” he cawed 
at last. “Now he's out of your way!” 

“What’s this?” asked Mammy. “Do you 
mean there isn’t any bear, after all?” 

“That’s what!” chuckled Jimmy. “Oh, 
I’m a wise old crow!” 


68 


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“You are that,” said Mammy gratefully. 
“Now do you suppose it will be safe for me 
to go home to Timothy?” 

“I don’t see why not,” said Jimmy 
“Though I’ll follow Lop Ear and make sure 
he doesn’t turn back!” And he was off, with 
his black flock after him. 

Mammy was just creeping timidly back 
through the barbed wire fence when her little 
black nose began to wriggle at a scent that 
was new to her. What’s more, it was one that 
spelled danger. 

At first she couldn’t tell just where it came 
from. But she pointed her long ears first this 
way, then that, and in another instant she 
had caught just the faintest kind of rustle. 
It seemed to come from somewhere in the tree- 
tops, and it seemed very nearly over-head. 
And some instinct sent a thrill of fear down 
Mammy’s spine. 

Though Mammy did not see it, a furry 
black form was creeping, creeping, creeping — 
oh, so stealthily — around the trunk of a cedar 
tree that Mammy would have to pass. On 
and on it came, silently through the tree-tops, 
till it crouched just over-head. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


69 


And Mammy listened, trembling, straining 
her ears for the movements that she felt 
rather than heard, while she wiggled her nose 
this way and that, trying to decide whose 
scent it was that the breeze kept bringing her. 

What could it be, Mammy asked her 
quaking heart. Someone after a rabbit, of 
course! — poor Timothy would wait in vain! — 
and a young bunny doesn’t last long, once he’s 
lost his mother. 

If only she could have seen this stealthy 
creature that seemed to be stalking her, she’d 
have some idea of which way to run. As it 
was, all she could think of was to crouch just 
inside the fence on the edge of the quick-sand, 
and wait! 

How fine the green world looked to her 
this morning, as she wondered if she would 
ever see it again! How beautiful the song 
Myrtle Warbler was singing somewhere not 
far away! And how many glorious races she 
had run, in her desire to live on in that same 
green world! 

Then Mammy’s nerves gave way, and she 
screamed, as she suddenly caught sight of the 
green eyes on the limb above! 


XX 


IN THE QUICKSANDS 

“The game is up!” thought Mammy 
Cottontail as she saw the cruel eyes above her. 

For flattened out along the top of an over- 
hanging limb was a creature that looked for 
all the world like a sleek black cat, except 
that he had a bushy tail like a squirrel, and 
a rather different look to his face. 

It was a marten, — a pine marten, — one of 
the cruelest rabbit-hunters in all the Deep 
Woods ! 

Already his plump, furry legs were drawn 
up under him ready for the spring that would 
land him on Mammy’s back. And now his 
eyes gleamed red with the murder that was 
in his heart, and his sharp claws scraped 
along the bark. 

What good did it do, Mammy asked her- 
self, to be inside a barbed wire fence, when 
some one was going to spring on her from 
above? 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


71 


The case seemed hopeless. Yet all in an 
instant, Mammy did a lot of reasoning, as 
people sometimes do when in deadly peril. 
Their wits are sharpened as at no other 
time in their lives, — as, indeed, they need 
to be. 

Should she leap backward or forward, or 
should she crouch there paralyzed with fright 
and let herself be caught without a struggle? 
Certainly not the latter! She could die 
game, at least! 

Just because it would have taken the 
fraction of an instant longer to leap back 
through the fence, Mammy chose the other 
direction. And at the very moment that the 
marten sprang from the limb of the over- 
hanging cedar, Mammy leapt straight out 
over the quick-sand. 

If she had to die anyway, she felt, she’d 
rather sink into the quick-sand than be 
torn by the marten’s claws. 

It was one chance in a million ! But Mam- 
my’s long hind legs had steel springs in them, 
and her mammoth bound carried her clear 
across the bog to the rim of solid earth 
beyond. 


72 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


With her heart in her throat and her legs 
trembling under her, Mammy turned to see 
what had become of her foe. 

To her amazement, the black, silky form 
of the marten, after lighting on the patch of 
ground she had left, made a leap straight 
after her, — but a leap that didn’t quite reach. 

For though martens are swifter than rabbits 
on their legs, and can drop straight down 
from the highest branches onto their prey, 
they haven’t the same kind of springs in their 
heels that bunnies have. — It was all that saved 
her from the cruel jaws that would have torn 
her to bits. For the marten landed squarely 
in the quick-sand! 

The next minute it was all over. Lower 
and lower he sank, though he struck out 
fiercely with his fore-paws in search of some- 
thing to save him. Mammy stood motionless 
in the horror of the moment. For now that 
she herself was saved, she could not bear 
to think of even her foe being drowned in 
mud. 

When there was nothing left on the surface 
of the pool save a bubble to show where the 
furry black form had landed, Mammy slipped 





<< 


ff 


Lower and lower he sank. 






TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


73 


through the fence and into a rabbit trail, and 
hip-pity-skip she made for home. 

Straight over the Old Stone Wall she leapt, 
without a thought of Writho, the Black 
Snake, who lay there sunning his coils, — and 
on to the top-most cabbage of the garden in 
the clearing. 

But her joy was short-lived. — Wee Timothy 
was gone! 



XXI 


WHERE WAS TIMOTHY? 

Where, indeed, was Timothy, the wee 
brown bunny? 

Mammy Cottontail was frantic ! 

First she stared at Writho the Black Snake, 
sunning himself on the Old Stone Wall. But 
there was no swelling anywhere along his 
shining length, so Timothy could not be inside 
of Writho, for he swallows everything whole. 

But what could have happened while she 
was having her own adventure? Timothy 
never disobeyed, and he had promised her 
never to leave the cabbage patch without her. 
Something, then, must have found him out 
in his hiding. But what? Could Red-tail 
the Hawk have seen his little brown form 
nibbling at the pink sweet clover? Or could 
Mother Red Fox have come sniffing along 
between the rows and found him? 

It made Mammy’s heart ache just to think 
of all the things that might have happened to 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


75 


a baby bunny while she had been escaping 
Lop Ear. 

Racing frantically around and around the 
clearing, and through the woods on either 
side, Mammy’s nose suddenly told her some- 
thing that sent a chill through her blood. — 
She had crossed Lop Ear’s trail! 

So he had cut across that way, instead of 
following the old Logging Road back to the 
Valley Farm! — Probably by chance, but a 
sorry chance for wee Timothy ! 

This, then, was what had happened, she 
told herself : Lop Ear had passed so near that 
Timothy had taken fright and run for his 
life, — with what result Mammy did not dare 
to think. 

With her nose to the ground, she began 
following the trail. She must know the 
worst ! 

First, it wound through a briar-patch at the 
edge of the clearing. — Good for Timothy! — 
Next it led zig-zag through the woods past a 
great tip-tilted log, and on to the old Logging 
Road. There it turned and came back as far 
as the foot of the log, then it zig-zagged 
around and around, as if the hound had not 


76 


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known which way to turn, — and finally led 
off toward the Valley Farm. 

The thing puzzled Mammy, especially as 
she only got Timothy’s scent at the very 
first. Hopping along with her nose to the 
ground, she traced it as far as the tip -tilted 
log, then lost it entirely. It was most mysteri- 
ous. 

“Oh, dear, what shall I do?” said Mammy, 
circling around the point where she had lost 
his trail. “That bunny never touched earth 
from this point on. And how he could have 
disappeared, unless into Lop Ear’s jaws, is 
more than I can see!” 

“Haw, haw, haw,” shrilled a familiar voice 
in a pine tree over-head. And “Haw, haw, 
haw,” screamed Jimmy Crow’s black flock. 
“I thought you had a better nose than that, 
Mammy Cottontail!” 

“This is no time for making fun of people,” 
wept Mammy. “I can’t find Timothy.” 

“I can’t see that you are much more clever 
than Lop Ear was,” chuckled Jimmy Crow. 

“What is that right above your head?” 


XXII 


JIMMY TALKS CROWS’ 
RIGHTS 

There on the very top of the tip-tilted log 
sat Timothy, the wee brown bunny, his 
fuzzy chest heaving with fright. 

He looked exactly like a bump on a log, and 
to make his cam-ou-flage more complete, he 
had actually closed his eyes, and so did not 
even see his Mammy. 

“Haw, haw, haw!” shrilled Jimmy Crow 
from the pine-tree above. “Pretty clever 
for a youngster, now, wasn’t it? — hid so his 
own Mammy couldn’t find him!” 

“How did you do it?” gasped Mammy 
Cottontail, leaping to his side and licking him 
all over to make sure he was un-hurt. 

“That was easy,” said Timothy, suddenly 
relaxing from his fright and throwing his baby 
chest out proudly. 

“I just gave one big leap on to the log, and 
the hound ran by with his nose to the ground, 
and he never once thought to look any higher. 


78 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


All I had to do was to sit still and wait till he 
was gone.” 

“Hounds are stupid,” said Jimmy Crow. 
“They won’t believe anything but their noses. 
But now, unless I can be of further service 
here, I am going back to the corn-field to have 
a little feed. 

“Come on, fellows! Mammy has been 
scouting for us, and she has found that fellow 
is only a scare-crow, so we’ve nothing to fear. 
And I declare, my sides do feel hollow!” 

“You see, Mammy, the Farmer has always 
been most unfair to us crows. He has tried 
every way to kill us, just because of the few 
ears of corn we eat each season. He never 
stops to figure out that if it wasn’t for us he 
wouldn’t have any com at all.” 

“Why, how is that?” asked Mammy, 
signalling Timothy as they followed hippity- 
skip to the corn-field. 

“Because,” said Jimmy, flying just over- 
head. “Don’t you see? We crows catch 
dozens and hundreds and thousands of bugs 
and worms and field mice and other things 
that destroy the corn. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


79 


“Why, that field of corn would have been 
pulled up by the roots before ever it was six 
inches high, if it hadn’t been for us crows! 

“And yet they begrudge us the few ears we 
eat when it’s ripe! You wouldn’t think the 
Farmer could treat us so, if you didn’t actually 
see him trying to shoot us ! 

“Such ingratitude I never did see!” 

“Oh, I’m awfully sorry, Jimmy,” said 
Mammy Cottontail. “Of course he doesn’t 
understand !” 

Arrived at the edge of the corn-field, where 
the scare-crow flapped his arms in the wind, 
Jimmy directed his followers: “Now you 
fellows wait right here! I’ll go scouting 
around and see if any one’s about!” 

“I’m going to watch,” said Mammy Cotton- 
tail, “and see what luck you have!” And she 
and Timothy fell to nibbling some clovers at 
the edge of the field. 

Jimmy circled higher and higher, till he 
could get a bird’s-eye view of all the surround- 
ing acres. 

“Every one’s down in the lower pasture 
stacking hay,” he finally reported. And the 


80 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


twelve black crows sailed into the corn-field * 
in high glee. 

“What’s that?” suddenly asked Jimmy, 
sighting a glittering object on the wagon 
road. 



XXIII 

JIMMY’S FIND 

“Kuk, kuk, kuk!” warned the twelve black 
crows, as Jimmy, their leader, circled down 
to the Old Logging Road. 

“Look out or some one will shoot !” 

“No they won't,” said Jimmy. “They're 
all down in the lower pasture pitching hay. 
Even the Little Girl!” 

And he alighted beside some shining object 
(Mammy Cottontail could see it from her 
clover patch.) It was a round, yellow band, 
with a glittering red stone set in the side of it. 

Jimmy picked it up in his beak and flew 
away to admire it. 

He had a hiding place for such treasures. 
Indeed, a certain hole in the top of the pine- 
tree down at the edge of the clearing furnished 
him much en-ter-tain-ment when the weather 
was bad. 

“What is it, what is it, what is it?” shrilled 
Jimmy's flock, as their leader circled away with 
the shining object, quite forgetting the corn. 


82 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


But Jimmy could not reply, for to have done 
so, he would have had to open his beak and 
drop his find. 

“Isn’t that just like a crow, — for all that I 
value his friendship?’ ’ laughed Mammy, with 
a wag of her ear. 

“Perhaps he wasn’t really hungry after all,” 
suggested Timothy, the wee brown bunny, 
with a blink. 

“Probably not,” agreed Mammy. “It’s 
certainly easy enough for a crow to get his 
living. There is almost nothing he need be 
afraid of, — lucky fellow.” 

“That’s why he can warn other people, 
isn’t it, Mammy?” asked Timothy. 

“Hush!” said Mammy, as she caught the 
sound of voices approaching from the hay- 
field. 

It was the Little Girl from the Valley Farm 
and her father. 

“That’s mighty funny,” the man was say- 
ing, as he knelt to examine the dust. “Here 
is where you dropped it, as sure as shooting,” 
— as he found the imprint of a ring in the dust. 
“And here are the tracks of a crow. As I live, 
I believe that black rascal stole it! What- 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


83 


ever made you take your ring off, anyway?" 

“I don't know," wept the Little Girl, “but 
I did." 

“Well, don't cry. I'll bet those crows have 
it, and I'll bet I know where they nest." 

“Oh, do you suppose they've got it?" the 
child brightened. 

“Well, look at those tracks. You just wait 
till I get my gun, and we’ll follow those fellows 
and see what we see." 

“Oh, but you wouldn't shoot them?" cried 
the child. “Don't, please don't do that!" 

“What? When they'll only rob my corn- 
fields if I let them go?" 

“But you have so much!" she pleaded, — - 
“Don’t kill them! — I'll go without some of 
my corn to make up for what they take. 
They make the woods so jolly and nice!" 

“Well, I'll make no promises," said the 
farmer, undecided. 

“Mammy!" asked Timothy, wide-eyed. 
“Is it Jimmy he wants to kill?" 


XXIV 


JIMMY IS FORGIVEN 

People will pay almost any price for the 
sake of being amused. 

And that was as true of the Valley Farmer 
as of anyone else. 

At any rate, he decided to forget the gun. 
For no sooner had Jimmy hid his glittering 
new plaything in the knot-hole in the pine- 
tree, than he came circling back to have a little 
fun with Barn-yard Tom, the Cat. 

Jimmy had often teased the hens by snatch- 
ing their food, when the men were away in the 
fields, — for Jimmy knew that men used guns. 

And today he was feeling especially cocky, 
what with having saved Mammy Cottontail, 
and found the ring, and learned the secret of 
the scare-crow. 

As it happened, he brought three of his 
flock. Now Tom was stretched along the edge 
of the wood-shed roof taking a nap when he 
was awakened by the sound of a feeble 
squawk, and opening one eye lazily he beheld 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


85 


a crow seemingly with a broken wing, strug- 
gling to get out of his reach. 

Tom promptly gathered his feet beneath 
him and began creeping forward, his mouth 
watering for a taste of crow meat. 

But just as he was ready to make the leap 
that would have landed him on Jimmy’s 
back, another crow flew down from behind 
and nipped the cat on the tail. 

“Pff-f-f-f!” said Tom in surprise, turning 
on the second crow. 

This fellow, too, had a broken wing, it 
seemed; and Tom stalked him clear across 
the wood- shed roof. 

But again, as he was ready for a slap of his 
barbed paw, Jimmy crept up behind, and 
gave him a nip on the tail. 

Again Tom whirled, and this time chased 
both lame-winged birds together. But as he 
was all but upon them, he got a third piercing 
nip in the tail. 

Tom whirled like a pin-wheel, spitting 
wrath and injured dignity. But even as he 
faced about, he received a fourth peck from 
the rear. 

Fairly beside himself in his surprise, he 


86 


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leapt into the air after Jimmy, whose wing 
had by now recovered. But a second black 
form flew between them, so that he just 
missed his aim. And in a moment more he 
saw all four circling away above his head, 
cawing their de-ris-ion. 

“Pretty good,” laughed the Valley Farmer, 
who all this time had been hiding behind a 
hay -stack with his gun. “Those fellows 
deserve to go free.” 

“Yes, Jimmy is a clever Crow,” Mammy 
Cottontail told Timothy, as the two brown 
bunnies watched from the tall sweet clover 
along the edge of the pasture road. “No one 
is safe from his pranks. But he’s a good old 
scout to have around, all the same. Many’s 
the friendly warning he’ll slip you, with all 
his mischief. 

“But sometimes I’m afraid he’ll get him- 
self into trouble that he can’t get out of.” 

How true that was Mammy little realized. 


XXV 

JIMMY GETS INTO TROUBLE 

Once Jimmy knew it was only a scare-crow 
that stood guard in the corn-field, he was in 
for having another feast while the men-folk 
were down stacking hay. 

He accordingly called his flock together, 
and with merry shouts the whole black band 
of them settled down again among the silky 
ears. 

But one thing they did not know. If the 
Farmer had decided not to harm them, the 
Hired Man had not. Without saying one 
word to anyone, that individual had laid a 
snare along the top of tjie snake fence. 

For a time tjiere was much feasting, Jimmy 
lighted on the head of the scare-crow, and 
plucked at the coals that made his eyes. And 
then he found a shiny nail, and flew around 
and around the field with it, with the whole 
flock trying to catch him. 

Tiring of that diversion, he caught up a 
string, one end of which he saw trailing over 


88 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


the fence, and tried to fly away with it. But 
the string was curiously hard to get loose, so 
Jimmy lighted on the top rail and started 
plticking at the loops. 

The next thing Jimmy knew, the string 
had wrapped itself about one leg, and Jim- 
my, — fly as he would, — could not pull free. 

My, what a scolding he set up! How he 
pecked at the knots that held him, storming 
and tossing and whirling about till the flock 
thought he had suddenly gone insane. 

But Jimmy was not one to give up meekly. 
Cawing and flapping his wings like a wind-mill, 
he leaped again and again into the air, flying 
as far as his tether would let him. But each 
time the string brought him back with a 
jerk, and each time it caught more tightly 
around his ankle, till it hurt dreadfully. 

Suddenly a cry of warning went up from 
His followers, who were circling helplessly 
around and around him. For sneaking across 
the bam-yard and through the nodding 
clover, and so along the fence, came Tom, the 
Black Cat whom Jimmy had teased so merci- 
lessly only the day before. 

But Tom only crouched the closer to the 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


89 


fence-rail, his wicked eyes gleaming narrowly 
as he sharpened his claws on the bark. 

“Peck his eyes out, peck his eyes out!” 
Jimmy shouted to his flock. But though 
several of them swooped low and made fierce 
dives at the approaching animal, none dared 
brave the sweeps of the barbed paw, which 
tore out feathers that could ill be spared. 

“All right, I’ll peck them out myself,” 
yelled Jimmy, making a great deal of noise 
by way of keeping his courage up. For some- 
thing told him he was helpless and would fare 
but badly with his old-time enemy. 

The next instant the cat leapt, and Jimmy 
barely escaped, flopping just out of reach at 
the end of the cord that bound him to the 
fence. 

“You will tweak my tail, will you?” hissed 
the Cat, leaping after him. — He got a mouth- 
ful of black feathers and lost a beakful of fur. 

“Help, Quick!” shrilled Jimmy, staring 
frantically about the empty corn-field. 


XXVI 

INTRODUCING FATTY CHUCK 

No sooner had Jimmy Crow given his 
call for help, with one foot in the snare and 
Barnyard Tom biting feathers at every leap, 
than a strange thing happened. 

Directly underneath the fence to which 
Jimmy’s leg was tied, in a snug little under- 
ground cavern, dwelt a fat gray fellow that 
looked for all the world like a great guinea- 
pig, except for his tail. 

Fatty Wood-chuck his friends called him, 
though certain others, whom he had worsted 
in fair fight, had named him the Grouch. 

As an actual fact, he was pretty fat. But 
as for being a grouch, no one had any com- 
plaint on that score, if they left him to mind 
his own affairs. It was very, very seldom he 
paid the slightest attention to anyone, save 
when someone trespassed on his own particular 
clover patch. 

Just now Fatty’s grievance was that Tom 
and the crows between them were making 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


91 


such a nerve-snapping noise directly overhead 
that he could not enjoy his nap. 

For a while he watched askance, with his 
nose just out of his hole. Then, curiously, he 
took a nibble at the cord, one end of which 
hung down directly in front of him. Having 
received much handling, the snare had a 
pleasantly salty taste that quite appealed to 
Fatty, and he nibbled farther. 

Ah, here was a knotted place that tasted 
saltier than ever! Fatty eyed Tom warily, 
but the cat seemed fully occupied as it was, so 
he crept out and squared himself for a treat. 

As his sharp little teeth gnawed through 
the knot, Jimmy Crow suddenly found that 
he could fly higher than the string had before 
allowed him. In fact, he kept on flying, 
though with the string still tight about his 
leg. And, just in the nick of time, he soared 
away clear out of Tom’s reach, to that ani- 
mal’s amazement. 

Fatty gazed after Jimmy indifferently, — 
while Tom whirled about on the wood-chuck. 
An old en-mi-ty existed between them, by 
reason of Fatty’s fondness for feeding with 
the hens, and Tom’s stern in-ter-fer-ence 


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every time he entered the chicken-yard. In- 
deed, there was a bite on the nose that Tom 
had never forgiven, though he had been peek- 
ing down into Fatty's hole at the time. 

His rage now knew no bounds. 

But Fatty also had a score to settle. 

Raising himself on his haunches, with his 
hand-like black paws over his chest, he 
squeaked furiously in his fat little voice, away 
down deep in his throat. 

But Tom was not one bit alarmed. In 
fact, he took Fatty for some new kind of rat 
and made a leap for him. 

This angered Fatty beyond measure. It 
was one thing to be chased out of the hen- 
yard where he knew he did not belong, and 
quite another to be attacked on his own front 
porch, as it were. Standing up to meet him, 
the Chuck gave one snap of his jaws, and 
Tom was holding his paw up very, very 
tenderly. 


XXVII 

WHEN A WOOD-CHUCK 
WOULD 

Now Fatty Wood-chuck was a stubborn 
fellow. 

Once he had really made up his mind to a 
thing, he would do what he had set out to do, 
or die in the attempt. 

In this case he had set out to remain in his 
own front yard, let come who would. — It 
was Barn-yard Tom, the cat, who was tres- 
passing. 

As he thought what a peaceful breakfast 
Tom had interrupted, Fatty would have 
longed to bite him, had the cat been twice 
his size. 

As it was, Thomas got two sore paws and 
a nip on the sensitive tip of his nose, before 
he decided that there were more important 
things to attend to back in the big red barn. 

But Fatty’s temper — never of the best — 
had by now been thoroughly roused. Having 
as he supposed, routed the whole flock of 


94 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


crows, to say nothing of an animal twice his 
size, he now decided to pursue his advantage 
and loot the enemy’s territory. 

Always before Tom had protested, (rather 
effectively,) when Fatty had ventured to pay 
the hens a call at feeding time. Now the old 
Chuck reasoned that the cat had had about 
enough for one day, and it was therefore safe 
to venture inside the fas-ci-nat-ing place where 
every night the Little Girl threw a panful of 
apple peels and carrot scrapings and other 
tid-bits to the chickens. 

Life to a woodchuck is divided, for the 
most part, between just two pleasures, — 
eating one’s fill of clover and grasses, and such 
delicacies from the vegetable garden as fall 
to his lot, and sleeping all curled up in a ball, 
deep down in the safety of his hole, till it is 
time to eat some more. 

The barn-yard, with its fragrance of clover 
and carrots and corn, was a sort of paradise 
to Fatty. In his wildest dreams he had never 
been able to think of any place he’d rather 
be, — provided he were left in peace to enjoy 
the del-i-ca-cies provided for its ten-ants. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


95 


The hound, he knew, had gone away with 
the men to the hay-field, and the women of 
the Valley Farm had never tried to harm him. 
Beyond that, Tom had been the only draw- 
back — and now he was routed. It seemed too 
good to be true ! 

Fatty Wood-chuck made one dash after the 
cat, who spat and yowled as he retreated to 
the hay-loft, — then fell to. And for upward 
of an hour there was no sound to disturb the 
stillness of a hot forenoon save the sleepy 
ka-ka-ka-a-a of the hens and the steady 
gnawing of the wood-chuck’s greedy jaws. 

Just as Fatty was beginning to enjoy the 
drowsiness that comes after a hearty meal, he 
was startled broad awake by the sight of 
Jimmy Crow flopping down squarely in front 
of him. 

Jimmy still wore the long cord of the noose 
around one ankle, though the knot had been 
pecked half in shreds. 

“Hello, there, Fatty Chuck,” said Jimmy 
cautiously, with one eye out for the cat. 

“How-do,” mumbled Fatty, between nib- 
bles at a turnip paring. 


96 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


“You’ve done me one good turn,” said 
Jimmy, “Want to do me another?” 

“I don’t mind,” choked Fatty, gobbling 
down the last of the turnip, so that he wouldn’t 
have to offer any to Jimmy. 



XXVIII 

JIM CROW HAS A PLAN 

“It’s this way,” said Jimmy Crow, stretch- 
ing his black wings lazily, as he saw that the 
barn-yard was empty. 

“What way?” asked Fatty a bit impatient- 
ly. He was dreadfully sleepy after his feast, 
and he longed for the coolness of his burrow 
under the fence. 

“You've done me one big favor, Fatty 
Chuck, and I shan't forget it. Any time you 
want to go exploring in the Farmer’s garden, 
I'll keep a look-out, and warn you if anyone 
comes.” 

“Hurray!” said Fatty, suddenly very wide 
awake. “I never knew before how good these 
vegetables taste. That black cat has always 
made such a fuss every time I ventured inside 
the fence; though why he should is more than 
I can tell you. I've never seen him eating 
turnip parings.” 

“Yes, sir, I’ll be mighty glad to keep a 
lookout for you, any time you say the word,” 


98 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


repeated Jimmy. “Now, my idea is this. — 
YouVe done me one good turn already in 
cutting the knot that held me in that snare. 
But here I’ve had to carry this great cord 
around all day on my ankle, and you simply 
can’t imagine what a nuisance it is.” 

"First, I got it caught in a pine tree, and I 
thought for awhile there I’d never get free. 
Then the fellows tried to peck it off for me, 
but they pecked off more skin than cord, from 
the way it feels. And you simply can’t 
imagine how hard it is to fly with a thing like 
that on your leg.” 

“I can’t imagine how it would feel to fly 
anyway,” said Fatty gravely. He was always 
as serious as could be. 

"Well, it’s destroyed my ballast,” said 
Jimmy. — "It’s like having more weight on 
one side of a boat than the other.” 

"A boat!” said Fatty quarrelsomely. "I 
should think you were more like an air-ship, 
if you were to ask me.” 

"I said a boat,” insisted Jimmy. "If you 
have ever seen a boat, you have noticed that 
it is modelled on just the lines of my figure, 
except that the oars aren’t as broad as they 



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TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


99 


should be. If the oars were as broad as my 
wings, a boat could fly as fast as a bird.” 

“Boats don’t fly,” retorted Fatty crossly. 
He was always very exact in his own state- 
ments, and he did not care for Jimmy’s airy 
flights of fancy. 

“Well, well, let’s not quarrel about it,” 
said Jimmy soothingly. “What I was trying 
to say, when you interrupted — .” 

“I didn’t interrupt!” 

“Say, look here, I guess you’re sleepy,” 
said Jimmy. “When little folk get sleepy, 
they’re always cross.” 

“I’m not little,” stoutly asserted Fatty 
Chuck. 

“I was only making fun,” said Jimmy 
hastily; “I won’t any more. But as I was 
saying, my ballast is upset with this string 
on my leg and I can’t fly straight. And I was 
thinking that perhaps with your sharp teeth, 
and your clever paws, you might get it off for 
me. Your paws are SO clever!” 

“I see,” said Fatty. “Why didn’t you say 
so in the first place? Beating about the bush 
that way never gets anywhere with me. 
Though that string DID taste nice and salty,” 


100 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 



as he remembered the 
knot that had been in 
the Hired Man’s hands 
till it got their flavor. 
“I don’t mind topping 
off on that big knot,” 
and Fatty fell to at 
Jimmy’s ankle. 

Both friends were 
too busy to notice, as 
stealthy foot -steps 
came up behind them. 





XXIX 

FATTY PUTS UP A FIGHT 

Alert as both Jimmy Crow and Fatty Chuck 
ordinarily were, they had been too busy biting 
the string off Jimmy’s leg to notice when 
Barnyard Tom came sneaking from the hay- 
mow. 

Now Tom hated both so keenly that he 
hardly knew which he’d rather attack. 
Jimmy Crow had teased him without mercy. — 
There was the little episode of tweaking his 
tail. 

On the other hand, the wood-chuck looked 
so like a rat that Tom had had a prejudice 
against him the first time he saw him, one 
day, — trying to pick up a few kernels with the 
hens. 

Tom’s morals were peculiar. He had no 
scruples himself against making ’way with as 
many little chickens as he could snatch, in 
the face of their mothers’ punishing wings. 

But for Fatty to steal their feed was quite 
a different matter. 


102 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


Tom felt it was HIS barn-yard, — except 
when Lop Ear the Hound came around. 
And every gnawing, rat-like creature that 
crossed his sight was his own par-tic-u-lar 
prey. 

He therefore made first for Fatty Chuck, — 
much as he would have enjoyed leaping 
straight on Jimmy Crow and settling scores 
once and for all. 

Now Fatty Wood-chuck had never yet 
shirked a fight. But he had always preferred 
to fight on his own grounds. At the first 
sound of Tom’s hiss, he whirled about so 
fiercely that the cat was surprised into back- 
ing off a trifle. 

Then Fatty made for his hole — Jimmy, 
mean-time, was high in the air, cawing his 
contempt of Thomas. — My, how Fatty ran! 
Fairly tumbling over backwards at the last, 
he landed in the little cave he had dug under 
the barn-yard fence. 

But Tom was close behind. And though 
he didn’t quite make it, he settled himself 
down to watch that hole as if he meant to 
stay all night. 

A long hour Fatty waited, — too angry now 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


103 


to sleep, and anxious to get out, just because 
he knew he couldn’t. If he had believed the 
way to be safely open, he would have lost all 
desire to go out again, perhaps till morning. 
And by that time Tom would long since have 
given up the chase. 

But after waiting till he just couldn’t stand 
the idea of being kept prisoner another 
moment, Fatty crept up to the entrance of 
his den to see what the chances were. And 
there was Tom watching with that green 
sparkle in his half-closed eyes. 

Without more ado Fatty set his long front 
teeth in Thomas’s nose and clamped his jaws 
over them. 

“Pf-f-f-f-ff!” yelled Tom, trying to back 
away from the hole. 

But Fatty held on tight, and even began 
doing some backing himself. And though 
Tom braced all fours, Fatty had the advantage 
of having a grip on a tender spot, and Tom 
was forced to ease up, till his nose was as far 
as he could thrust it into the hole. 


XXX 

THE RAT TRAP 

Fatty Chuck, having convinced Barn-yard 
Tom that he was not one to be trifled with, 
suddenly let go his hold, and the old cat som- 
er-saul-ted back out of the hole with a hiss like 
a gander. 

Thereafter there was to be a truce between 
them, Fatty felt convinced; and he could 
visit the barn-yard whenever he pleased. 
There was often a carrot or a handful of potato 
peels that the hens were too full to eat, and 
these things spelled a rare treat for Fatty, 
what with his steady diet of clover. 

“Why should they feast while I starve?” 
he had often asked himself. “Surely I have 
a right to what would otherwise go to waste.” 

And growing bolder as the days went by, 
and his presence went quite un-noticed by 
Barn-yard Tom, he even took to sampling the 
pan of milk that was every evening poured 
for that animal after the milk pails had been 
skimmed. The warm, frothy fluid was really 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


105 


more to Fatty’s liking than anything he had 
yet tasted, unless of course, it were carrot, — 
of which he never tired. 

One night the Hired Man found the rats 
had gnawed the boots which he had greased 
and hung in the loft where he slept. He 
promptly brought out a trap and baited it 
with the thing nearest to hand, namely, a 
half-gnawed carrot, — which he rubbed with 
candle grease. (The rats were supposed to 
be lured by the grease.) 

As an actual fact, it was not the grease, but 
the carrot, that proved the lure to his catch. 
All that day Fatty Chuck had been confined 
to his hole by the activities of the farm-yard, 
for they were hoisting the hay to the loft, and 
both the Hired Man and Lop Ear, the Hound, 
were in and about the place so lively that Tom 
had taken refuge on the fence-post directly 
above Fatty’s front door. 

Once the black of night had settled down 
on the barn-yard and Tom had gone aloft to 
watch a rat-hole, Fatty emerged, so starved 
and cross that he decided to give himself a 
treat. Instead of making his slow way to the 
clover patch as usual, he therefore sniffed 


106 


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about till he had found the milk pan. In that 
he found but a few unsatisfying drops. 
But from somewhere near he could smell the 
delicious fragrance of a carrot. 

Now, Fatty isn’t very used to being out at 
night, and he couldn’t see as well as he’d have 
liked to. But he could follow his nose. 

A moment later there was a snap of steel 
wires, and poor Fatty lay groaning, with one 
of his clever little black paws caught fast in 
the trap. 

What should he do, he asked himself with 
wildly beating heart, as the throbs of pain 
shot up his fore-arm, bringing the cold sweat 
out on his forehead. Wait till morning and 
be taken alive? Not he ! 

No wilderness creature with any spirit will 
ever be taken alive. Not, at least, if he can 
help himself. 

What, then, should he do? 


XXXI 

A DESPERATE REMEDY 

No, sir-ee, Fatty Chuck was not the fellow 
tamely to allow himself to be caught in a trap ! 

So, therefore, when he found one of his 
clever little black fore-paws fast in that 
thing of luring carrots and steel wires, the 
first thing he tried was jerking out of its 
clutch. — But to no avail! 

Next he tried to run away from it. He 
managed to drag the wicked thing across the 
barn-yard to his hole, into which he backed 
as vi-gor-ous-ly as possible. But though the 
trap was too big to follow him in, it refused to 
let go at his door- way, and he was perforce 
obliged to try some other method. 

Fatty’s next idea was to bury it and leave 
it fast in the ground. 

But that didn’t work, either. Although 
he managed, painfully enough, to cover it with 
earth with his one free paw and his two hand- 
like feet, it dug itself right out again the 
minute he with-drew. 


108 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


It was most discouraging. But Fatty had 
a stubborn courage that would not allow him 
to despair. 

Perhaps he could bury it a little deeper. 
And having tried that and failed to get free 
of its clinging jaws, he tried once more to dig 
himself into hrs hole, leaving the trap on the 
outside, — but with as little luck as before. 

There seemed nothing better left to do than 
to tug. And tug he did, till his arm was numb 
with pain, and the light in the east roused the 
first birds to their morning greetings. 

Desperate now as he thought of losing 
his freedom, poor Fatty settled himself to his 
one last alternative. He gnawed off his paw ! 

* * * * 

When the Boy from the Valley Farm came 
by with his milking-pails a few minutes later, 
he stopped with a cry of dismay. For there 
beside the barn-yard fence, to which it had 
made a long trail in the dust, was a rat-trap. 
And in it lay the poor little black paw. And 
the limping trail that led to Fatty’s fortress 
was dotted with blood. 

“Poor little shaver!” pitied the boy, whose 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


109 


heart had room in it for all wild things. “Poor, 
brave little chuck !” 

“I must see to it, now, that he is left in 
peace, and that he finds it easy to get food.” 
And he promptly laid the apple he had in- 
tended to eat before Fatty’s doorway. 

“I suppose his leg will heal,” he mused, 
4 ‘but how he must suffer! I think I’ll leave 
him a saucer of milk every night and a carrot 
every morning.” And he ran to the barn and 
got a whole handful of tender young carrots, 
and shoved them into the hole. 

“But I wish I knew how to make Lop Ear 
and Thomas understand about him,” he 
talked on to himself. “If I put a fence around 
him, he’ll think he’s in prison. I can train the 
dog to keep away from this neighborhood. 
But I don’t know what to do about that 
wicked cat.” 


XXXII 

A SILVER LINING 

“Every cloud has a silver lining. ,, 

And so Fatty Wood-chuck found it. 

Not that anything on earth can make up 
for the loss of one’s paw! That furry little 
black hand that he had had to leave in the 
rat trap had been one of a working team of 
four with which he had tunneled his house, 
and dug his roots, and combed his fur, and 
run from his enemies. 

And the last was the most important. 
For one could find food with only three paws, 
and one could still dig — though it was like 
rowing with one oar — around and around in a 
circle. But even that could be endured. 

It was when Fatty tried to run that he 
saw how seriously hand-i-capped he was. 
(In fact, the very word hand-i-capped means 
having one’s hand cut off. So you can see 
how serious it was !) 

He could still run on three legs. But if 
before, it had been nip and tuck between him 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


111 


and Tom, what would it be now that he was 
so crippled, he asked himself? And until he 
knew the answer, you may be sure he had no 
intention of going very far from home, hungry 
though he might be. 

Still, there was a decidedly silver lining, 
as we have said, to his troubles. For whereas 
before he had to run the gauntlet of all the 
dangers of the barn-yard for the milk and 
carrots he loved, he now found them right on 
his front door at intervals, as his appetite de- 
manded. And that was certainly what most 
wood-chucks would call being in clover. 

Nor was Fatty Chuck unhappy at his 
forced se-clu-sion. At least not yet! It had 
never been hard to make Fatty happy. Plenty 
of good things to eat and a nice comfortable 
bed in which to snooze till it was time to eat 
again, and Fatty had about all he wanted in 
this world. 

He hadn’t thought yet about how hard 
it would now be for him to support a family 
and fight their battles, should the time ever 
come when he might want to have one. He 
was just living from day to day that summer. 
Jimmy Crow came once in a while to cheer 


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TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


him up with a morsel of gossip. And then 
there was the Boy! 

At first the matter of the carrots and the 
saucer of milk and other delicacies had been 
a mystery. Fatty was in too deep pain to be 
interested. He ate because he must, and 
asked no questions. 

Later he took to peeking cautiously from 
just inside his doorway when the goodies 
arrived. 

Then, assured that neither Tom nor Lop 
Ear were anywhere in sight, he took to creep- 
ing half out of his burrow when the milk dish 
arrived, and lapping it up from that strong- 
hold. The Boy's presence at these times he 
came to take as a matter of course, as the 
Boy never made a quick move to startle his 
nerves. 

But it was many weeks before he finally 
learned to come coaxingly to the Boy's out- 
stretched hand to accept his carrot. 


XXXIII 

CLOSE OF KIN 

“Back, sir! Leave him alone !” the Boy had 
sternly told the hound, when he made after 
Fatty Chuck. 

And when Lop Ear saw that the Chuck 
enjoyed his master’s protection, it was quite 
settled, so far as he was concerned. 

Here-after Fatty was the Boy’s private 
property, to be protected as such against all 
comers. And woe be to Barn -yard Tom 
should he ever again molest the lame Chuck ! 

“Hello, there!” a cheery voice sounded 
over-head one day, as Jimmy Crow alighted 
on the fence post just above Fatty’s door. 

“Hello, yourself!” grinned Fatty Chuck, 
poking just the tip of his nose out. 

“Oh, come on out. What are you scared 
of?” laughed Jimmy. “Any one that’s got 
it as soft as you, ought not to act as if there 
were a price on his head.” 

“Well, to tell the truth,” said Fatty, 
emerging slowly and settling himself back on 


114 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


his haunches, with his one little black paw 
across his chest, “it’s Red-tail the Hawk that 
I'm really afraid of now." 

“Well, I'll keep an eye out while I’m 
here," said Jimmy in his hoarse, friendly 
voice. “I can see just how you feel, though, — 
I can see just how you feel ! 

“Red-tail is not a pleasant visitor at best, 
and with your hand-i-cap — " eying the paw- 
less fore-leg pityingly, “it would certainly 
be hard to get away from him. Does he 
bother around here much?" 

“Oh, every day — every day," asserted 
Fatty, gravely. 

“Chicken, I suppose?" smiled Jimmy. 

“No, sir — not as much as you'd suppose. 
In fact, I’m always ready to give an enemy 
his due, and I believe Red-tail has been 
slandered in that regard. 

“It’s rats most of the time he comes after. 
That's just why I have been so nervous, if 
the truth were known. Because, of course, 
my grandmother's third cousin once removed, 
was a member of the rat family, you know, 
and I've been told we chucks still bear a 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


115 


certain family resemblance — though, for my 
part, I cannot see it at all.” 

“Nor I,” agreed Jimmy politely. “The 
domestic rat — any dom-es-ti-cat-ed animal — 
is a de-gen-er-ate.” 

“Certainly there is no likeness in our 
habits,” continued Fatty a bit ag-gress-ively. 
(Which means he was ready to fight for his 
point.) “We chucks are vegetarians, for one 
thing. While these barn rats — why, honestly, 
you wouldn’t believe me if I were to tell you 
just how many baby chicks and eggs, those 
rats eat up in the night! I think, perhaps, 
Red-tail gets a lot of blame for that sort 
of thing when he isn’t guilty at all. 

“Red- tail has a cousin who IS a bad one. 
But Red-tail himself prefers a rat to a chicken 
any day in the week, and field-mice to field- 
corn. He is really the Farmer’s friend.” 

“Curious how these reports get about,” 
mused Jimmy. “Someone’s cousin does a 
thing, and at once his whole family, kith and 
kin, is blamed for it and hunted down without 
mercy. But I should certainly keep a weather 
eye out for Red-tail, all the same, if I were 
you. Not that you do look in the least like a 


116 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


rat,” he hastened to add, “but you see — from 
so high up — a hawk is apt to take any little 
fellow — ” 

“There you go again! I’m NOT a little 
fellow!” Fatty in-ter-rupt-ed crossly. 

Jimmy changed the subject a-brupt-ly. 

“Fm going to bring someone to see you 
tomorrow that I think you’ll be interested 
to meet,” said Jimmy sooth-ing-ly. 



XXXIV 

MAMMY PAYS A CALL 

“Well, I certainly am glad to see you!” 
said Fatty Chuck, hurrying from his burrow 
under the barnyard fence. 

It was Mammy Cottontail, come with wee 
Timothy, the brown baby bunny, for a call. 

Overhead, just high enough to be out of 
gun’s reach, circled Jimmy Crow, on guard. 

“I’m so sorry to hear about your paw,” 
said Mammy, referring to the trap from 
which Fatty had gnawed his way to freedom. 
“I certainly don’t know what I should do if I 
were to lose a paw, — even a fore-paw, — be- 
cause if I couldn’t run faster than a fox, I 
wouldn’t last a day. — No, sir, I wouldn’t 
last one day! 

“By the way, aren’t we some sort of 
cousins? — There’s those gnawing front teeth 
of yours, now. 

“The Cottontails have always been quite 
ce-le-brated for their front teeth, and I see 
you have the same kind.” 


118 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


“Yes,” agreed Fatty proudly. “My two 
long front teeth have roots that extend clear 
to the back of my skull. And the more I 
wear them off gnawing my food, the faster 
they grow. My cousin Benny Beaver has 
the same kind of teeth, else he could never 
fell trees as he does.” 

“And then if you’ll notice” — opening his 
mouth to show her, — “behind those two long 
cutting teeth of ours, Benny and I have a way 
of sucking in our cheeks and keeping out the 
dust and chips that we dig and gnaw. That’s 
the only reason we don’t get the dirt into our 
throats, you know.” 

“Is that so?” piped Timothy. “Won’t you 
please open your mouth again, so I can see 
it?” Fatty obliged him, for he was proud of 
his teeth and the curious arrangement of his 
cheeks. 

‘Why, you’ve got that kind of mouth 
yourself, child,” laughed Mammy Cottontail. 
“Didn’t you know that?” 

“Yes,” turning again to Fatty Chuck, “it 
seems to be a family trait. I recall that my 
mother, and my mother’s mother, and, in 
fact, every relative as far back as I can re- 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


119 


member, has had that kind of mouth. And I 
can see Timothy is going to be the same way,” 
and she glanced proudly to where that 
youngster had started nibbling one of Fatty’s 
carrots. 

“Did you know that Mother Red Squirrel’s 
family are all the same way, too?” 

“No, really?” exclaimed Fatty. 

“It’s a fact!” declared Mammy Cottontail. 
“And so with my cousin out west, Jack 
Rabbit, and my second cousin, Shirr Chip- 
munk, and my little cousins, Jerry the Jump- 
ing Mouse, and Minnie Meadow Mouse!” 

“Whew!” gasped Fatty. “I had no idea 
we had so many family connections.” 

“Oh, yes, indeed,” said Mammy Cottontail. 
“There is no family anywhere near as large 
as ours, — nor as old. Why, we can trace our 
ancestry back thousands of years! 

“Didn’t you know that even Unk Wunk 
the Porcupine is a sort of relation of ours? — 
and Barnie the Rat, as well, — I grieve to say.” 

“Ha! ha!” laughed Fatty Chuck. “That’s 
always the way. The minute one begins to 
look too far into a person’s family history, 


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there is sure to be someone you are ashamed 
of for everyone that you pride yourself on!” 

Fatty’s further remarks were suddenly 
cut short by a com-mo-tion that broke out 
just over-head. 



XXXV 


JIMMY HAS AN ACCIDENT 

Now, Jimmy Crow had a wonderful eye for 
beauty. 

Perhaps it was because he was dull and 
black himself. But every time he saw a 
glittering object, be it a mica-streaked pebble 
that shone silver in the sunshine, or the lid 
of a tin can on the ash heap, he made straight 
for it. 

Not that he carried these things home to 
his nest! By no means. Some other crow 
might steal them. He had a secret hiding- 
place for his treasures in an old wood-pecker’s 
hole that no crow could get more than his 
head into. 

And from this treasure-chest he would often 
select some play-thing with which to while 
away the hours, to the great envy of less 
fortunate crows. 

Often they raced him all over the woods in 
their effort to get his toy away from him. It 
became a game of “tag.” or “hide-and-seek,” 


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which Jimmy enjoyed quite as much as he did 
his plaything. 

When Fatty Chuck and Mammy Cotton- 
tail were so harshly interrupted in their gossip 
under the barn-yard fence, Jimmy had been 
circling high above the corn-field, studying 
the lay of the land. 

He was happy in the fact that the men were 
all down in the pasture pitching hay, when 
he suddenly spied a glittering object on the 
ground between the barn and the house. 

It was a silver spoon that had been thrown 
out by mistake when the dishpan was emptied 
and to Jimmy it seemed the loveliest thing 
he had ever laid eyes on. 

Darting rapidly down upon it, Jimmy at- 
tempted to seize it in his beak and fly away 
with it. But the spoon was heavier than he 
had counted on. In fact, it took him quite a 
few minutes to get it to balance. 

Meantime Barn-yard Tom had been eying 
the in-trud-er with an evil glance in his yellow 
eyes. 

Creeping forward in the shadow of the bam, 
as stealthily as velvet paws would permit, Tom 
suddenly made one of his great leaps. And 



Now I have you.” 























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123 


though Jimmy fluttered into the air just in 
time to escape the full force of his landing, 
Tom got one claw tight fast into Jimmy’s 
wing. 

“Now I have you !” hissed Thomas. “So you 
would tweak my tail, would you? Well, now, 
I have no great fondness for crow’s meat — ” 

“Yes, I know you prefer song birds,” cawed 
Jimmy saucily. “But I’ll sing a song you 
won’t forget, if you don’t let go of that wing!” 

“P-f-f-f-f-!” said Tom. “I’m not fond of 
crow’s meat, but I’m going to have some for 
supper, just the same!” 

“Kuk, kuk, kuk!” said Jimmy. “Let go 
of my wing!” For Thomas’s claws were be- 
ginning to hurt. And he beat the great cat 
across the face with the wing that was free. 
“I’ll tweak your tail good for this, see if I 
don’t!” 

“Yeow! You will when you get the chance 
to!” snarled Tom. 


XXXVI 


FRIENDS TO THE RESCUE 

“Oh, dear, isn’t there something we can 
do to help?” wailed Mammy Cottontail as 
she saw Jimmy with the cat’s claws fast in 
his wing. 

“What can we do?” squeaked Fatty Chuck, 
sitting up on his hind legs with his one good 
paw folded across his breast. 

For Jim Crow was certainly getting the 
worst of it. Often and often he had pinched 
Thomas’s tail when he could come on the cat 
unawares. And never before had Tom got 
more than a mouthful of feathers — if he did 
that! 

But this time his claws were thrust fast 
into Jimmy’s wing, and flutter as he would, 
the bird could not free himself. Just now he 
was trying to make Tom let go by buffeting 
him across the face with his one free wing. 
But Thomas remembered the tail tweakings 
and hung on. 


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125 


Jim Crow had tweaked the Cat’s tail once 
too often. And how it might all have ended, 
goodness only knows. 

But just as Tom was reaching for Jimmy’s 
throat, Fatty Chuck — made one of his mad 
rushes at his old enemy and set his teeth in 
the cat’s other paw. 

He was back in his hole in an instant, was 
Fatty. For what can a lame wood-chuck do 
against a cat twice his size? But his action 
had served to distract Tom for a minute 
from his attempt at Jimmy’s throat. 

Next Mammy Cottontail, roused by the 
memory of Jimmy’s friendship to herself, 
made one of her mammoth leaps, striking Tom 
across the nose just as she had the time she 
rescued her baby bunny. But, of course, it 
didn’t do Jimmy any good, except to put off 
the evil moment a little longer. Jimmy was 
quite helpless, though he never ceased to beat 
his one free wing in Thomas’s face and tear 
at the furry black sides with his feet. 

“Help, help!” cawed Jimmy, wishing that 
some of his flock might hear, and come and 
peck the great cat’s eyes out. 


126 


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And help came, though Jimmy’s call had 
been in crow talk. 

It was the Boy from the Valley Farm, sent 
back for a jug of cider cool from the well. 

“You wretched cat!” shouted the Boy, 
making for Thomas. 

The next instant Jimmy was ready to faint 
with fright, for human hands were feeling 
him over and washing out the wound in his 
wing. And the next thing he knew he was 
inside the big farm kitchen, being cuddled 
into a soft little basket hung well out of 
Tom’s reach on a nail in the wall. 

Jimmy was a prisoner! 

“There!” said the Boy, “I’ll bring you in 
something nice to eat in a minute. But first 
I think I’d better put some vaseline on that 
wing.” 

But Jimmy didn’t understand. He only 
knew that his wing hurt dreadfully, and that 
he expected the Boy to eat him any minute. 


XXXVII 

A MERRY PRISONER 

Jimmy Crow was more frightened than ever 
now. 

For though the Boy had rescued him from 
Barn-yard Tom, Jimmy feared the Boy the 
more. 

While his rescuer bound up his wounded 
wing, Jimmy only knew that it hurt. And 
when he found he couldn't fly, he refused to 
eat. 

But after a night in the basket on the 
kitchen wall, Jimmy felt so much more com- 
fortable that he awoke rav-en-ously hungry. 
Then the Boy came with scraps from the 
table, and Jimmy thought he had never tasted 
anything half so delicious. 

Of course, he kept a weather eye out for 
Tom, when the cat came meowing to the door. 
But, once he had spied him through the open 
window making off for the barn, Jimmy was 
ready for further discoveries. 


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He accordingly flopped down to the floor, 
falling with quite a thud, with only one wing 
to sustain him, and landing in quite the 
opposite corner from the one he had set out 
to explor. 

Breakfast cooked, the kitchen was for the 
time deserted. In a spot of sunshine on the 
window sill lay some chips of broken glass, 
gleaming and glittering in a way that de- 
lighted the great bird. 

Seizing one of these in his beak, he looked 
about for a place to hide his treasure. The 
oven door was open, for the coal range was 
not in use this summer, and Jimmy just mana- 
ged to wedge his treasure into one corner. 

But there were other fas-ci-nat-ing pieces 
of broken glass, and Jimmy could not rest till 
he had stowed every last one of them inside 
the oven. 

He found a silver thimble on the porch and 
promptly buried it, away in the heart of the 
flower bed. 

When, later on, the Boy shut the cat in the 
corn-crib and turned Jimmy loose in the barn- 
yard, he had the time of his life feeding with 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


129 


the startled hens, and making awkward, one- 
sided efforts to fly. 

It didn’t take many bribes of sweet-corn 
to make him realize that the Boy was a friend, 
and for a time, while his wing was still dis- 
abled, he consented to ride about on the lat- 
ter’s head. In this way he made long jaunts 
through the forbidden corn-fields, — and even 
the Hired Man dared not touch him. 

He cawed his defiance to the scare-crow, 
went frequently to call on Fatty Chuck in his 
burrow under the barn-yard fence, and even 
learned to fly, in his ragged fashion, to meet 
the Boy. 

As his wing grew stronger, Jimmy lost all 
fear of being kept a prisoner, should the Boy 
desire it. But meantime he saw no reason 
why he should not amuse himself till the 
bandage was taken off. And he also had a 
plan in the back of his head for getting even 
with Tom. 

Lop Ear the Hound had been instructed 
from the first to treat Jimmy as a guest, and 
it was a delight to see the great dog meekly 
standing by, while Jimmy tramped up and 
down his back, tucking bright pebbles and gay 


130 


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bits of yarn into his fur, and cawing at their 
mutual enemy, the cat. 

Then one day Jimmy found the very chance 
he was looking for to punish Thomas. 



XXXVIII 


THE RUBY THROATS 

Jimmy Crow had often admired Mr. and 
Mrs. Ruby-throat, the Humming-birds, as 
they flew about the garden. 

Indeed, he had sometimes taken tiny Mr. 
Ruby-throat’s red vest for some wonderful 
jewel and flown quite close before he found 
out his mistake. 

Whether it was because he was so black and 
ugly himself, or because of his love of shiny 
things, certainly Jimmy had felt a special 
interest in the Humming-bird family long 
before he found himself living in the barn- 
yard with a bandage around his injured wing. 

It was a jewel of a nest that the Ruby- 
throats had made, — a little round thing just 
big enough for a baby’s fist. Mrs. Ruby- 
throat had cunningly lined it with bits of a 
soft sponge she had found near the cross-roads 
school -house. And you cannot imagine any- 
thing cuter than that little nest, plastered fast 


132 


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to a limb of the lilac bush under the store- 
room window. 

As the long golden days wore on, and 
Jimmy found time on his hands, it became 
his delight to watch Mr. and Mrs. Ruby- 
throat and the two babies — now nearly 
as large as their parents, — hovering before 
the holly-hocks that bordered the garden walk. 

The first thing in the morning, they always 
thrust their slender beaks into the honey- 
suckles to drink the sap. And my, how they 
enjoyed it! 

Jimmy used to watch them — as they taught 
their fat, elf-like babes that quivering motion 
of the wings that holds them just in front of 
the flower while they thrust their beaks in. 
And how he envied Mr. Ruby-throat his ruddy 
velvet vest! 

It had been impossible to get acquainted, 
for the Ruby-throats were terrified when they 
heard Jimmy’s harsh caw of greeting. But 
Jimmy used to peek at them from inside the 
window. 

Barn-yard Tom was also interested in the 
Humming-bird family, — though in quite a 
different way. And so long as there had been 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


133 


larger nests to raid, he had held them in 
reserve, as a house -wife holds a can of some- 
thing extra dainty on her pantry shelf. 

Jimmy was not the only bird who con- 
sidered Tom a wicked fellow. While the 
young birds were learning to fly, scarce a day 
had passed upon which he had not crept into 
some tree in the dead of night when every 
bird was asleep, and carried off a young one. 

So one morning early, Jimmy had come 
upon the cat creeping, creeping, creeping 
along the fence to where he could watch the 
Ruby-throats, — as they explored the hearts 
of the holly -hocks, and swallowed a few of the 
teeny spiders that they found between the 
petals. 

Then they made a tour of the near-by trees 
to see if there weren’t holes bored by the 
yellow-bellied sap-suckers and other larger 
birds, — where they might find a few drops 
left. 


XXXIX 

GETTING EVEN WITH 
THOMAS 

Now the Boy from the Valley Farm had 
always punished Barn-yard Thomas when he 
caught him slinking back from the woods 
with a young bird in his mouth. 

But it did no good. It only made the old 
cat do on the sly what before he had done 
openly. 

So the minute Jimmy Crow, strutting forth 
into the early morning sunshine, with the 
bandage on his wing making flight all but 
impossible, had seen Tom creeping toward 
the Humming-bird nest, he knew what was 
up. 

He also knew he had that same cat to 
thank for his wounded wing and his loss of 
freedom. Add to that his natural admiration 
of the Ruby-throats and you can see how he 
felt about it! 

Now, Jimmy was a wise old crow. He had 
seen that the Boy was kind. He had seen 


trail and tree top 


135 


him beat the cat when Tom came with a bird 
in his mouth. And he knew that the Boy 
would punish the cat if he knew. 

Jimmy, therefore, did the one thing left for 
a bird with a broken wing to do. He promptly 
set up such a shrill “Kuk! Kuk!” of alarm 
that the Boy heard and came on the run. 

Another moment and Tom had been seized 
by the scruff of his neck and locked in the 
bam, and Jimmy had been given a whole ear 
of sweet-com for a reward of merit. 

“My, I’d have killed that cat if he’d got my 
humming-birds,” the Boy told his father that 
noon when he carried the men’s dinner out to 
the hay-field. 

“And the worst of it is, he’ll go straight after 
them again the minute he gets out. I am 
beginning to think we can’t keep a cat. The 
bam is full of rats, but he’ll destroy all the 
birds before he gets through.” 

“I know,” said his father, “and we need the 
birds, not alone for their song, but because 
they protect the crops. There is nothing like 
birds for catching harmful insects. - ” 

“Can’t we do something about it?” asked 
the Boy, much distressed. 


136 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


“I was just thinking,” said his father, 
stroking his beard. “We might put some- 
thing around the trunks of the trees the birds 
nest in, so Tom could not climb.” And he 
outlined a plan that set the Boy’s feet to 
tripping eagerly back to the bam. 

“What are you going to do now?” cawed 
Jimmy curiously, as he saw the Boy hauling 
out a collection of old tin cans. 

The Boy of course did not understand. 
“Good Jimmy!” was all he answered, stroking 
the crow’s black feathers affectionately. “You 
are my right-hand man, aren’t you, now-a- 
days?” 

Neither did Jimmy understand what the 
Boy was doing when he cut the sides of the 
cans into long, shining strips and then bent 
them flat. But he felt very sure it had some- 
thing to do with Tom, and he cawed his 
derision as he saw the latter’s green eyes 
peering through a knot-hole. 

“I said I’d get even! — Now you watch!” 
called Jimmy tri-um-phant-ly. 


XL 


A USE FOR TIN CANS 

“What in the world is he up to? asked 
Fatty Chuck, peeking from his burrow under 
the fence to watch the Boy bending old tin 
cans into strips. 

“He’s going to fix that Cat with those,” 
replied Jimmy Crow, stalking around the 
barn-yard with his wing in its sling. 

As an actual fact, Jimmy didn’t know half 
so much as he pretended. But he did know 
that Tom was “in bad” with the Boy for 
killing birds. 

“What do you suppose he can be up to?” 
asked Mammy Cottontail, as she spied the 
Boy striding past her bramble-bush with a 
shining bundle under his arm, and hammer 
and nails in his pockets. 

And “What is he going to do in our woods?” 
asked Robin Red-breast of Mrs. Robin. And 
Black-Mask the Yellow-throat peered and 
peeked, following the Boy from tree to tree. 


138 


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In fact, there were many curious pairs of 
eyes watching from behind the leaves and 
beneath the underbrush as the Boy strode 
down the Old Logging Road. 

He began with the oak in which Mr. and 
Mrs. Wood-Thrush had reared their family. 
Taking two of the strips of tin, which he had 
flattened out from the sides of the old tomato 
cans, he notched their inner sides with the 
shears till he could fit the pair of them around 
the tree-trunk in the manner of a little boy’s 
collar. 

And when they were tacked in place, there 
was a shelf of tin around the trunk, just too 
high for Tom to jump over if he leapt from 
the ground. While climbing up the trunk, 
his head would come plump against the shelf, 
and he would need wings himself to get 
around it. 

Next came Betty Bluebird’s elm, then the 
Cat-bird’s willow, and after that the tree in 
which Tattle-tale the Jay had his hole. Thus 
the Boy went through the fringe of woods 
bordering the Old Logging Road. 

The only trees he failed to put the cat- 
guards on were those whose branches inter- 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


139 


laced with those of adjoining trees that a cat 
could climb. 

“Hurray, hurray, hurray!” sang Mr. Wood- 
Thrush. “We are safe, we are safe!” And he 
voiced that peculiar note of his so like a kiss. 

“So far, so good!” exclaimed the Boy, when 
the last tin had been tacked in place. “Wild 
cats or tame, they won’t climb THOSE 
trees! That’s one thing sure!” 

But Black-Mask and Betty Blue-bird and 
the rest were not content with seeing the Boy 
go whistling back to the farm at the foot of 
Mt. Olaf. Very, very cautiously they alighted 
on the shiny tin plat-forms, stepping high and 
ready any instant to take flight. And how 
they peeked and peered at the under side, and 
wondered what the things were for! 

At first Black-Mask was for moving at 
once, for fear something dreadful were going to 
happen. He always was a sus-pi-cious fellow. 

But Mrs. Thrush had known and watched 
the Boy all summer, and even talked with 
him, and eaten the crumbs and bits of suet 
he had sprinkled for her in the early spring. 
And she had every confidence in him. 

But Jimmy Crow was watching Tom! 


XLI 

A JOKE ON THOMAS 

“Caw, caw, caw!” laughed Jimmy Crow, 
as he spied Tom the Barn-yard Cat, slinking 
along the Old Logging road. 

“He's after a young bird,” Fatty Chuck 
confided to Mammy Cottontail. 

Black-Mask, the Yellow-throat, peered sus- 
piciously from behind a leaf, and Betty Blue- 
bird set up a distressing wail, flying about in a 
manner that should have directed the cat's 
attention quite away from her young Bob and 
Betty up in the elm tree. 

Meow, the Cat-bird, flew on ahead mock- 
ingly. And Tattle-tale, the Jay, circled about 
just over the tree-tops harshly advising the 
younger birds to be on their guard. 

But pretty Mrs. Wood-Thrush continued 
to call her youngsters from one good feeding- 
ground to another with that peculiar note of 
hers so like a vigorous kiss. For she had 
watched the Boy tacking the tin guard on her 
tree, and she had studied the odd little plat- 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


141 


form enough to have her own idea of what it 
was for. 

As luck would have it, Tom chose the very 
tree in which Black-Mask had his nest. And 
you should have seen the fuss he made! (He 
and Mrs. Black-Mask together! Especially 
the Missus!) 

But Jimmy Crow, whose wing was by now 
quite healed, though the Boy had not yet 
taken the bandage off, made his way to a con- 
cealing branch and watched with keen amuse- 
ment. 

First Tom tried to climb the trunk, but 
quickly found he could not get beyond the 
jutting shelf of tin. 

Then he dropped to the ground, attempting 
to leap to the trunk above the tin. But the 
guard had been placed too high. 

Next he scrambled into the branches of the 
neighboring trees to see if he could not crawl 
across from some inter-lacing branch. — But 
Black-Mask, with his customary caution, had 
selected a tree — or allowed Mrs. Black-Mask 
to select one — that stood quite by itself. 

Tom gave it up in disgust, to Jimmy Crow’s 
delight. 


142 


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But it was not yet time to crow. There were 
other trees to try. But though Thomas went 
the rounds of all those the Boy had put the 
little tin shelves around, it was of no use. The 
birds who dwelt in them were safe. 

Thomas would have to go deeper into the 
woods if he were to catch a bird for supper, — 
and that he was loathe to do. 

“Now will you be good?” cawed Jimmy, 
flapping along behind, as the old Cat made 
for the barn-yard, frightening the birds full 
as much as Tom had done. 

“See how well Jimmy can fly!” exclaimed 
the Boy, as the crow made for his shoulder. 
“I do believe his wing is healed. I’m going to 
take the bandage off.” 

The next moment the crow was free. 

With one hoarse caw of delight, the great 
bird stretched his wings and rose into the air. 

“Good-by,” he was trying to say. But the 
Boy only stared after him in his disappoint- 
ment. 

“You can’t really tame a full grown crow,” 
comforted his father. “But come here, and 
I’ll show you something.” 


XLII 

BURIED TREASURE 

The Boy from the Valley Farm was dis- 
appointed when Jimmy Crow flew away. 

The bird had been such a clever, affectionate 
pet, managing even with his injured wing to 
flop to the Boy’s shoulder. 

But the instant the bandage had been 
taken off he had risen into the air and made 
straight for the woods. 

“Come with me,” the Boy’s father had 
then said mysteriously, beckoning him down 
the old logging road. “It’s a good thing, in 
one way, that bird didn’t care to stay on, or 
there wouldn’t have been a spoon in the 
kitchen. Do you know what your mother 
just found in the wood-pile?” 

“What?” asked the Boy, following through 
the moon-lit woods to the right of the old 
logging road. “What’s Jimmy been up to?” 

He’s only hidden every silver spoon on the 
place in that wood-pile,” laughed his father. 
“One by one they have been disappearing, but 


144 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


never when any one was looking. That bird 
is certainly a sly one.” 

“Ho!” laughed the Boy. “Then I guess I 
know how all that broken glass got into the 
oven.” 

“And now,” said his father, striding past 
Pollywog Pond, “I have an idea I know what 
became of your sister’s ring.” And he led the 
way to the particular tall pine in which 
Jimmy and his cronies had their nests. 

Jimmy had arrived long before, and greet- 
ings had been exchanged, and now all was 
quiet, for it was away beyond the time when a 
crow can keep awake. The tree was covered 
with black forms all dreaming of the day’s 
aer-o-planing. 

“Step softly now,” whispered the man. “I 
discovered it quite by accident. They were 
moving it from an old woodpecker’s hole.” 

Away down in the crotch of a broken limb, 
where some high wind had blown it, huddled 
an old crow’s nest. It was rammed in there 
in such a position that no self-respecting crow 
would have dreamed of raising a family in it, 
even had she cared to locate so near the 
ground. But this very fact was its protection. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


145 


Carefully gathering up the untidy-looking 
mass of sticks, — which held together sur- 
prisingly well, because crows’ nests are built 
to withstand high winds, — the Boy’s first 
surprise was to find it softly lined with dried 
grass and horsehair. There was also some- 
thing in it that felt hard to his finger tips. 

Carrying it out into the full light of the 
moon, he gave a gasp of amazement. There, 
in a great, glittering heap, lay bits of broken 
glass, a colored pebble, the top of a shiny tin 
can, two or three red feathers, a small harness 
buckle and a spray of red berries, — Jimmy’s 
playthings! 

And in the very midst of the assemblage 
there lay the Little Girl’s lost ring! 



XLIII 

INDIAN SUMMER 

“That’s no field mouse!” said Frisky’s nose, 
as the red fox pup circled to windward of the 
tiny squeaking sounds. 

“That’s the Boy at the Valley Farm! Now 
I’ll just pretend not to see him at all till I get 
behind that rock, then I’ll race for the woods.” 

For Frisky didn’t know that the thing the 
Boy was pointing at him was only a pair of 
field glasses. And he wouldn’t have stayed, 
even had he known. Frisky did not like 
to be watched. He therefore did exactly as 
he had planned, crossing the field with seeming 
lack of interest in anything save the purple and 
yellow of asters and golden-rod and the scarlet 
of wood-bine, and the blue of the Indian 
summer sky, till he felt himself out of range of 
any gun the Boy might have concealed about 
his person. 

At the instant of his discovery that it was 
one of those dangerous human creatures that 
sat there like a stump, Frisk had cocked his 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


147 


ears sharply and leapt fully two feet into the 
air in his surprise. 

That was the only sign he made, however, 
of the extreme anxiety that set his heart to 
thumping, till he was just on the edge of the 
woods; then he suddenly looked back with one 
of his thin, husky barks, to know why the Boy 
should have tried to fool him. 

And afterwards, from the shelter of the 
barberry vines that fringed the old stone wall, 
he peered and peeked and wondered about it, 
— as long as the Boy remained. 

“Guess he’s harmless,” he finally decided. 
“I wonder if it wouldn’t be fun to go chase 
Fatty Chuck!” 

Now Fatty had been getting very sleepy. 

He always goes to sleep before the first cold 
comes, and he scarcely wakes again till he is 
quite sure that spring has come. 

All the long, golden October days, therefore, 
he nibbled drowsily in the cabbage patch, or 
stuffed himself on string-beans, or lugged little 
wind-fall apples to the den under the fence. 
His appetite was un-be-liev-able, and his 
sides were getting so round that when he went 
to sleep standing up, as he sometimes did of a 


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sunny afternoon, he simply rolled over and 
over till he woke up again. 

And what with getting so fat and jolly, and 
feeling so drowsy, his sauciness returned, and 
he tweaked the cat’s tail till that crusty 
animal left his pan of milk for the hay-loft, — 
which was just what Fatty wanted. He then 
proceeded to drink the milk himself. 

One thing that made him bold, despite his 
injured fore-leg, was that his skin was so thick. 
A gun-shot scarcely scratched it. Twice, when 
Fatty had been munching cabbages, the Hired 
Man at the Valley Farm had taken a shot at 
him, but each time Fatty had come off with 
nothing more than a scratch, and, scrambling 
to safety, had chuckled his defiance. 

“He’ll make the best little supper I ever 
had,” thought Frisky Fox, as he ambled 
a-tiptoe down to the Valley Farm. “I’m 
much obliged to him, I’m sure, for plumping 
up so.” 


XLIV 


FATTY AND THE 
RED FOX PUP 

“Yes, sir, I’m certainly much obliged to 
Fatty Chuck for plumping up so,” thought 
Frisky, the red fox pup, as he tripped his 
furtive way to the Valley Farm. 

“He’ll probably be too sleepy even to run.” 

But in this the fox was mistaken. 

Fatty was never sleepy when his life was at 
stake. 

He was nibbling at the under-side of a 
cabbage at the moment Frisky found him, and 
though he recognized the seriousness of the 
situation, — a fox can run much faster than a 
chuck, — he was prepared for this very kind of 
emergency, and he simply popped into the 
secret tunnel he had dug from the cabbage- 
patch to his home. 

But if Fatty were prepared for the meeting, 
so also was Frisky Fox. That amazingly wise 
youngster simply sniffed out Fatty’s other 


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entrance hole, and waited till his keen black 
nose told him Fatty was inside. 

Then — he began to dig! 

My, how the dirt flew, as Frisky set him- 
self to dig out that Chuck. And how angrily 
Fatty chuckled as he tried to snap his jaws in 
Frisky's nose, — without running the risk of 
having the tables turned! 

Then he, too, started to dig! 

Frisky dug and dug and dug. And three- 
pawed Fatty also dug and dug and dug. And 
the nearer Frisky thought he was getting to 
his supper, the farther that supper was digging 
his way in the opposite direction. 

And after all, Fatty was the best equipped 
for digging — what with his webbed toes, and 
his ears which shut like furry doors to keep the 
dirt out, and his powerful little hind legs, 
which could close in the tunnel behind him 
as he advanced. 

The long and the short of it was, that 
Frisky gave up in disgust — only to see, to 
his own amazement, that Fatty had at last 
arrived in a neat little den beneath the roots 
of a hemlock. And there he sat, just out of 
reach, the roots being so closely woven, in 



“Frisky gave up in disgust.” 




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151 


their twistings and turnings, that a fox could 
not squeeze between. 

That’s what ! There sat Fatty Chuck, whist- 
ling a warning to every creature within hearing 
distance of his squeaky little voice, warning 
them that Frisky Fox was out on a hunting 
trip. 

At least Fatty thought he was safe! — As an 
actual fact he didn’t know Frisky Fox. For 
the red pup was no fox to give up like that. 
Frisky had set out to get that wood-chuck, 
and he meant to have him. And no sooner 
did he see how impossible it was to squeeze 
himself between the hemlock roots than he 
set out to dig beneath them. 

And Fatty Chuck had nothing left to do, 
but to dig himself another tunnel, — and 
tunnel himself into the edge of the woods, 
where he took to a hollow log. 

But as that took all night, Frisky had long 
since given up the chase. 

The danger now was in the fact that Fatty 
didn’t know the woods, and all that lurked 
there. 


XLV 

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD 

Fatty Chuck peered warily from his un-ac- 
cus-tomed quarters in the hollow log. 

The moon shone cold and crisp through the 
can-o-py of the forest. And its beams slanted 
off mys-ter-i-ous-ly here and there as they 
struck some bit of rotten, phos-phor-es-cent 
wood. 

(Phos-phor-es-cence, you know, is the thing 
that makes lightning bugs shine in the dark. 
Nobody knows much about it. But it cer- 
tainly seems a bit spooky to see dead stumps 
gleaming in the shadows of the wood-land.) 

Fatty had worked all night, but when he 
looked about him, straining eyes and ears to 
the new sights and sounds that now sur- 
round-ed him, he didn’t feel the least bit 
sleepy. Instead, he shivered inside his furs, 
and it wasn’t such a very cold night either. 

A screech owl in a branch just overhead 
suddenly set his weird cry to echoing through 


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153 


the listening silence. And Fatty’s hair fairly 
rose on end at the suddenness of it. 

You see, down under-ground, Fatty gen- 
erally has his furry ears closed so that they 
won’t get full of dirt, and that way he can 
scarcely hear a thing. So he had really never 
heard an owl before, quite so close to. And if 
he had had any drow-si-ness left in his system, 
he would certainly have felt wide awake by 
now. 

Still, morning did come at last. And my, 
how different was the world he now looked 
out on from the old barn-yard, beside which 
he had passed such a happy summer ! 

Frisky Fox passed very near once, but with 
the first rays of pink in the east, a spider had 
woven her web over the end of the log. And 
Frisky, seeing that web glittering with dew- 
drops, felt sure no one had gone inside, and so 
passed by. 

That was once where his brains led him 
astray. 

Later Fatty ventured forth to sun himself 
on a boulder, And so still he sat, and so 
perfectly did his brown fur match the rock, 
that he seemed a part of it. Old Man Lynx, 


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slinking past on a hunting expedition, looked 
straight at him without seeing him. 

Now, Fatty was not the only watcher of the 
wood-land who matched his back-ground. He 
had been basking on the top of the boulder 
for at least an hour before he suddenly became 
aware that there was someone else there. Just 
beneath him, crouched against the side of the 
boulder, there was a little movement. Then 
Mother Grouse Hen fluttered to her feet and, 
with a soft cluck, summoned her eight half- 
grown chicks to her side and began picking at 
the little brown-capped mush-rooms that 
sprang from an old stump. 

A moment later she was joined by Shadow 
Tail the Red Squirrel, who likewise set to 
nibbling at the mush-rooms. 

“Hello, there, 1 ” ventured Fatty the fearless, 
in his tiny squeaking voice. 

“Hello yourself,” barked Shadow Tail pert- 
ly, though his sharp eyes could but just make 
out the furry form on the boulder. 

“Who’s this?” clucked Mother Grouse Hen, 
nervously. 


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155 




XLVI 

A LESSON ON MUSHROOMS 

“How do you know those are not poison?” 
asked Fatty Chuck, from his post on the 
boulder. 

“Oh, that’s easy,” said Shadow Tail, the 
Red Squirrel, nibbling daintily from the edge 
of a mushroom. 

“There are only a few poison kinds one is in 
the least likely ever to get hold of. — Not that 
I’d advise YOU to eat any that hasn’t been 
passed upon by some of us wood-folk who 
know them. Because if you DID get poisoned 
you’d never live to profit by what you had 
learned !” 

“Dear me!” sighed Fatty, eyeing the mush- 
rooms hungrily. “I don’t want to take any 
chances. But will I always have to ask some- 
one else? — What if there is no one else around 
to ask? Couldn’t you possibly teach me the 
kinds that are good to eat?” 


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157 


“Huh!” sniffed the little squirrel. “I guess 
you don’t know what you are asking! Why 
there are three thousand different kinds!” 

“Oh, do please teach me!” begged Fatty, 
fairly beside himself with longing. 

“You can always eat puff balls, these little 
round ones that have no stems,” said Shadow 
Tail. “Only break them open, to be sure 
there are no stems. They are not fresh and 
good unless they are white inside. When they 
get old the insides turn yellow. When it comes 
to toadstools and fungus, the poison kinds are 
so like the good ones that it really takes a very 
old experienced squirrel to know them. And if 
you eat the wrong kind, even a tiny taste, it 
might kill you!” 

“Oh, dear!” sighed Fatty. “That doesn’t 
make me feel any the less hungry right now!” 

“But I will show you one so deadly poison 
that you must not even touch it,” said Shadow 
Tail; and he led Fatty softly through the 
dancing shadows that fell from the sun-lit 
tree-tops to an umbrella-shaped toadstool that 
grew under an oak tree. The gills beneath the 
cap were white, the stem ended in a bulbous 


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root, and around the upper end of the stem 
hung a thin veil of membrane. 

“One nibble at that, and you’d never see the 
sun rise again!” said Shadow Tail. “Then 
there’s another that I’ll have to show you 
some other time.” 

“Hm,” sighed Fatty. “I don’t know yet 
what I’m going to have for breakfast. I don’t 
see anything around here but dead leaves and 
pine needles to make a meal off of.” 

“Come with me, then,” laughed Shadow 
Tail, who loved to show off. “Just look here,” 
and he scampered up a tree-trunk to a great 
cluster of orange-yellow fungus, which he 
began gobbling greedily. 

“How do you think I am going to get up 
there?” asked Fatty crossly. 

“Oh, that’s so,” giggled the little squirrel. 
“I forgot. You can’t climb. Well, how about 
some nice red bar-berries? Then there’s the 
sumac.” And he danced to some low-growing 
bushes with heavy red plush seed clusters. 
But though the red squirrel scrambled up the 
velvety branches like a breath of wind, Fatty 
Chuck could only stand and stare in disgust. 

“I do believe you’re making sport of me,” 
he chuckled angrily. 


XL VI I 

A NIGHT OF TERROR 

Fatty Chuck felt sure that Shadow Tail was 
having fun at his expense. 

For how could Fatty climb the sumac 
bush? 

He watched wrathfully while the little 
squirrel gnawed greedily at the red velvet of 
the stag-horn sumac berries. 

“Oh, say, that’s too bad,” Shadow Tail 
apologized, dropping back beside him. “I’ll 
show you something you can reach,” and he 
scampered down to a swampy place where a 
delicate vine trailed over the golden-rod. It 
had dainty, three-fold leaves, and the clinging 
stem bore clusters of flat pods that looked for 
all the world like tiny lima beans. 

“It’s a bean — but what a little one!” 
exclaimed Fatty Chuck, setting his sharp teeth 
into one crisp pod that lay along the ground. 
“Um! How perfectly delicious!” And he 
crunched happily. 

“And look here!” exclaimed Shadow Tail, 


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digging rapidly around the roots. A moment 
more and his clever paws had un-earthed a 
string of little round tubers covered with fine 
brown hairs. Opening one with his teeth, he 
took the enclosed nut up in his fore-paws, and 
gnawed off a bit or two. ‘‘Try it,” he urged 
Fatty Chuck, handing him the remainder. 
“It’s the Indian potato.” 

Fatty didn’t care as much for the potatoes 
as for the beans, but there was this to be said 
in their favor, — he could always dig for them, 
whereas a good many of the beans hung 
beyond his reach. 

Thanking his new friend for his neighborli- 
ness, he spent the rest of the mellow, sunny 
day fattening up for his winter sleep. 

Then the long shadows began to creep 
about him, and it seemed to his im-ag-i-na- 
tion that the woods were peopled with shining 
eyes that everywhere peered at him hungrily. 

His fur rose along his spine, despite himself. 
And though he could have gone back and 
finished the mushrooms around the stump, 
he decided he had better take to his hollow 
log again, there to await in chill and dread the 
coming back of the sun. 


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161 


Why, oh, why, had he been so foolish, he 
asked himself, as not to have dug himself a 
burrow? It was all his greedy appetite, as he 
well knew. And if now he went to satisfy Old 
Man Lynx’s hunger, it was no more than he 
might expect. 

Longingly he remembered the old tunnel 
under the bam-yard fence, and the Boy who 
always brought him a carrot. Whether it was 
his nerves, or whether he really saw a pair of 
gleaming eyes peering down at him from the 
limb above, at first he could not tell. But 
finally there was a blood-curdling screech, and 
Fatty started in spite of his resolve to lie 
low. 

It was indeed Old Man Lynx. That 
screech was one of his best tricks, dull-eared 
and short-sighted as he is. For so long as his 
prey holds perfectly still, he can never be 
sure whether there is anything there or not. 
But if the screech makes them jump, then he 
knows. 

In this case Fatty jumped! 

The next instant the wood-chuck heard the 
thud of a heavy body, which had landed on 
the log directly above him. 


XLVIII 


THE OLD, OLD CHUCK 

Seldom had Fatty Chuck been so frightened 
as at that moment. 

For the lynx had landed on the log directly 
above him, and it would be but a moment 
before those great, yellow eyes would be 
gleaming hungrily into the end of the log at 
him. 

And, while Fatty Chuck would not hesitate 
to set his teeth in a fox’s nose, he somehow 
knew that it would be no use with an animal 
as big as Old Man Lynx. 

Instead, as his foe leapt for the forward 
end of the log, he backed out at the rear, and 
made for a little crevice between two stones. 

And there he waited, trembling, while Old 
Man Lynx sniffed up and down the log, 
ripping it open with his great barbed claw, 
and searching disappointedly. 

Again he gave his cry, — that blood-curdling 
screech that made the boldest jump. 


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163 


But this time Fatty knew his lesson. He 
had the wit to profit by experience, and when 
he heard that screech he made neither move 
nor sound. And Old Man Lynx peered and 
listened this way and that, but he couldn't 
see what had become of Fatty. 

That danger past, and the lynx well on his 
way toward another victim, Fatty was for 
creeping miserably back to his hollow log, 
when another wood-chuck passed him, going 
very slowly. 

Fatty was so relieved, — though he had 
always before loved solitude, — that he could 
scarcely contain his delight. 

But the old chuck went straight on as if he 
had not heard the greeting. 

“He must be deaf," thought Fatty, squeak- 
ing a little louder, as he followed after. But the 
old chuck never looked to right nor left. He 
just crept on, slowly but steadily, till he came 
to a place where some-one had evidently 
started to dig a hole not long before, — for the 
earth was still fresh-smelling, as when first 
turned. 

The old chuck began digging, but he worked 
so slowly, and stopped so often to nod, that 


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Fatty thought he must surely fall asleep before 
he had his hole dug. 

Fatty noticed that the poor old fellow was 
as thin as if it were spring, and he thought to 
himself if he didn’t come out of his winter’s 
sleep pretty early, he’d be reduced to skin 
and bones. For the wood-chuck does not 
store nuts like the door-mouse, — he just 
stores fat. 

Suddenly Fatty noticed that the old chuck 
had not moved for quite a few minutes. He 
just stood there beside his hole with his eyes 
closed. Then he toppled over. “Pleasant 
dreams,” cried Fatty, thinking he must be 
very sleepy. 

And because he was so lonely, he crept up 
and poked his nose into the old fellow’s fur. — 
But what was this? The body was as cold as 
ice. — And somehow, Fatty knew he would 
never wake again. 

“I guess he was trying to dig his grave,” 
Fatty mused. “Well, well, well, he had lived 
to a ripe old age, anyway.” 

Then his ears caught a crunching through 
the bushes as of some heavy body that didn’t 


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165 


care who heard, and he quickly popped into 
the vacant hole and pulled the dirt in after 
him. 



XLIX 


A TILT WITH TWINKLY EYES 

Imagine how Fatty must have felt when 
he heard that crackling and crunching through 
the bushes! 

No one he had yet met in the woods had 
made a particle more noise than he could 
help. Every one had slipped by like a 
shadow, afraid to attract the tiniest bit of 
attention. But this creature did not seem to 
mind who heard him. That meant that he 
was afraid of no one. And that meant that he 
was so big that no one could possibly hurt 
him. 

Fatty crouched trembling in the hole left 
vacant by the tired old wood-chuck. It had 
been intended for a grave, and the thought 
was not comforting. Still, it was very much 
better than having no hole at all to hide in. 

But all the same, Fatty felt very far away 
from home, and he kept his furry ears wide 
open, as the heavy foot-steps approached. 


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167 


Presently he was aware of a loud sniffing 
sound, as if some very large animal were 
nosing about. And the sniffing came nearer 
and nearer! 

Fatty felt a cold shiver run down his spine, 
and his fur rose on end. 

It was Twinkly Eyes, the little black bear! 

Just how Fatty knew this, he could not 
have told you. As an actual fact, he knew by 
the odor. For wild folk depend far more on 
their noses than do human beings. And it 
was an odor that his mother had pointed out 
and warned him against, away back in the 
days when Fatty was a wee little chuck. The 
memory came back to him, little by little. 

And with his memory of the bear came 
another memory. His mother had told him 
that bears could dig. And Twinkly Eyes 
would dig him out of his hole before he could 
say Jack Robinson! — It was a fearful situa- 
tion! Especially for a wood-chuck with only 
one fore-paw to tunnel himself out with! 

But Fatty was game. He could think of 
only one thing to do, and even then he didn’t 


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know if it would work. He would throw a 
bluff! He would dash madly out on the 
enemy, gnashing his teeth and squealing at 
the top of his voice. It had once worked with 
Barn-yard Tom. 

So Fatty did just that. He dashed at the 
little black bear as if he were going to set his 
teeth straight into Twinkly’s nose. 

But alas, the bluff did not work! Twinkly 
Eyes knew perfectly well that Fatty wouldn’t 
really do it, and he wasn’t the least bit afraid. 
In fact, it only struck him as extremely funny 
that such a tiny fellow as Fatty Chuck should 
threaten a great bear like himself. And 
his little black eyes twinkled more than ever. 

The instant Fatty saw that the bear was 
not going to be frightened in any such manner, 
he decided it was time to take to his heels. 

And take to his little black heels he did, to 
such good effect that he was clear back to the 
hollow log before Twinkly quite realized which 
way he was headed. 

But then the little black bear simply gave 
four great bounds, and he was between the 
log and Fatty. And he had one paw with its 
barbed claws raised and ready. 


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169 


Fatty trembled till his teeth fairly chat- 
tered. He didn't seem to have the ghost of a 
show, but he meant to fight till the end. 



L 


THE RATTLE-SNAKE 

Fatty Chuck was certainly in a tight place. 

The only hiding place he knew of was the 
hole in the hollow log, and Twinkly Eyes the 
bear stood between that and himself. 

Moreover, Twinkly had one paw up-raised, 
with all its curved claws bared and ready for a 
clutch at Fatty’s fur. 

For the moment, it didn’t seem as if the 
wood-chuck had a show in the world. (He 
didn’t see the teasing twinkle in the bear cub’s 
eyes.) 

Then something un-ex-pect-ed happened. 
The bear had stepped on a rattle-snake. 
Straightway the reptile struck at Twinkly’s 
leg, winding himself about it tightly and 
thrusting his fangs farther in. 

With a roar of pain, Twinkly turned his 
back on the wood-chuck, and gave his whole 
attention to putting an end to that snake. 

It was all over in an instant. At least, so 


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171 


far as the snake was concerned! For Twinkly 
snapped his head off in a thrice. 

It wasn’t over so far as Twinkly Eyes was 
concerned, because he had to suck his wound 
and spit out the poison, and then hunt around 
until he found a healing herb to rub it with. 

If he had been a boy instead of a bear, the 
bite would have been far more serious. But 
bears’ blood is peculiar. A bear can eat stale 
fish that he finds on the river bank, and be 
none the worse for it. And he can get stung 
by wasps and hardly know it the next day. 
And so he was able to cure the snake-bite, 
where it might have killed any other animal. 

But when he at length remembered Fatty 
Chuck, that little ad-ven-tur-er was no-where 
to be found ! — He had scampered back to the 
hole from which he had entered the wood-land 
the time Frisky Fox was after him. And once 
inside the little tunnel he had dug on that 
terrible day, he never even stopped for 
breath. Soon he was back in his burrow 
under the barn-yard fence at the Valley Farm. 

He would risk Lop Ear, and Barn-yard 
Tom. He would chance even Frisky Fox’s 
coming back to find him. But he would not 


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pass another night in the woods! On that he 
was quite decided! 

And my, how happy he was when he found 
the carrots the Boy had piled up beside his 
hole! He poked his nose out cautiously, and 
pulled one into his den. And there he 
munched and munched and munched, till he 
could hold no more. 

And then he slept. — My how he slept! For 
it was getting very near the time when Fatty 
Chuck would go to sleep for the winter. Every 
morning now the frost was white on the 
grass, and the maples gleamed red from the 
edge of the wood-land. 

But Fatty had an instinct for getting even 
fatter before he entered the long sleep. And so 
one morning, when the grass was still wet with 
dew, he ventured forth in the sunshine to 
crop the clover that grew just inside the edge 
of the corn-field. And that is exactly where he 
made a big mistake. After all the adventures 
he had had, he should have been contented to 
munch the carrots with which the Boy 
supplied him. 


LI 

COOPER THE HAWK 

Fatty Chuck had certainly had an ad-ven- 
tur-ous summer. He had had more things 
happen to him than any other chuck he 
knew. 

But so far he had always come out on top, — 
except, of course, the time he lost his paw in 
the rat-trap. 

He had escaped the Hired Man’s gun. He 
had come out ahead with Lop Ear the 
hound and Thomas the barn cat. And he 
had out-dug Frisky the red fox pup. He had 
even gotten safely home when Old Man Lynx 
had chased him. Never in all his life before 
had he known of a chuck having so many 
adventures. 

But they had all come, directly or indirectly, 
on the heels of the accident whereby he had 
lost his paw. And with each adventure he had 
become a wiser chuck, till now he almost felt 
that nothing could really happen to him, no 
matter what he did. 


174 


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But it is a dan-ger-ous thing for anyone to 
get to feeling that way, as Fatty was soon to 
learn. 

This morning, as he scampered clumsily 
along on his short legs for a dessert of clover, 
he was so sleepy, and so busy thinking about 
the falling leaves, and the hoar-frost on the 
ground, that he failed to see a faint shadow 
that hovered just over-head. 

It was Cooper the Hawk, out for his break- 
fast, too, — and of all things that grow, Cooper 
loves woodchuck best of all ! 

Around and around in a graceful spiral, 
like an air-plane about to descend, went 
Cooper, his sharp eyes piercing their way to 
the fat furry form in the clover, and his hooked 
beak pointing hungrily in the same direction. 

Cooper was really as large as Fatty, though 
he didn’t look so, — way up there in the sky. 
But so light was his mottled vest that even had 
Fatty chanced to look up at that moment, it 
is doubtful if he would have noticed anything 
unusual about the sky. For Fatty lives 
underground so much that he doesn’t depend 
on his eyes half so much as most folk. 

But again, as so often before, the one- 


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175 


handed wood-chuck had a friend in need. 
Jimmy Crow was also out getting his break- 
fast that morning, and the instant he saw the 
peril Fatty was in, he cawed a warning in a 
voice as hoarse as it was friendly. 

“Look out, Fatty Chuck !” he screamed 
shrilly. “Run home, quick! Or Cooper the 
Hawk will get you!” 

And Fatty ran! — My, how he ran! His 
little black heels fairly twinkled behind him. 

He reached his burrow not an instant too 
soon. For the moment he began to run, the 
hawk began to swoop; and before ever Fatty’s 
heels were out of sight, Cooper was dashing 
at him with his cruel beak. He did get a 
pinch of fur out of Fatty’s ankle. But he had 
to let it go at that. 

Besides, there was that meddlesome Jimmy 
crow to chase! 

Thus happily ended Fatty’s last adventure 
before his winter’s sleep! 


LII 


OLD MAN LYNX 

On and on raced Mammy Cottontail, the 
little brown hare, through the winter woods. 
For an early blizzard had turned the world 
to white. 

And after her leapt Old Man Lynx, his 
broad, furry feet skimming the crust of the 
drifts like snowshoes. His stub tail thrashed 
angrily at thought that a mere brown bunny 
could so elude him. And his green eyes 
blazed in his square-whiskered old face. 

But Mammy, fortunately, had one advan- 
tage over her mammoth foe. So large and 
heavy was Old Man Lynx that where she 
skimmed like a feather over the light crust, 
he every now and then sank into some soft 
drift, which delayed him, till she had put a 
greater distance between them. 

Then, too, his great, cushioned feet were 
so warm that they melted the snow that clung 
to their fur, and in time he found himself 



“He stopped to bite the snow-balls off his 
clumsy feet." 







TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


177 


trying to run on snow-balls. And that hurt his 
toes dreadfully. 

The third time he stopped to bite the snow- 
balls off his clumsy feet, Mammy Cottontail 
managed to get clear out of sight behind a 
spruce tree. And there she did a flying leap to 
the Old Stone Wall that lined the Logging 
Road, and crept into a crevice where Old Man 
Lynx could not follow, even had he found 
her there. 

“Bully for you, Mammy,” called Jimmy 
Crow, flying just overhead. 

For her the night was ended. And as soon 
as she had caught her breath and removed the 
tiny snow-balls from between her own warm 
toes, she settled calmly back to comb the 
snow from her whiskers, and think the 
situation over. 

She would wait there till daylight, snatch- 
ing a little sleep in the thick fur robe that she 
had grown. Then when the pale, yellow sun 
had crept into the salmon-tinted sky, she 
would hip-pity-skip away home to the Old 
Apple Orchard to where she knew the rest 
of the family awaited her in safety. 

Wriggly Nose and Paddy Paws, and Flap 


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Ears and Furtive Feet, and Fuzzy Wuzz and 
Hippity Skip, and even Timothy, (now large 
enough to look out for himself,) each had a 
special nook under the Old Stone Wall; and 
their Dad had taught them how to evade even 
such enemies as Father Red Fox. 

Mammy certainly had a family to be proud 
of! 



LIII 

THE RED FOX PUP 

One day, soon after Frisky’s surprise at 
the first snow, he was puzzled to see a little 
hummock on the root of an old oak tree, 
apparently moving about as if changing to a 
more comfortable position. 

Now, snow was uncanny enough in all 
reason, without knot-holes on trees hopping 
about that way. And Frisky decided to find 
out what made this one act so queer. (One 
reason why he was so wise and clever was 
because he was always studying out the 
reasons for things he didn’t understand.) 

Keeping at a good safe distance till the 
mystery should be solved, he began circling 
the tree, amber eyes fastened intently on that 
little brown hump. But no further movement 
could he detect. 

Then suddenly he got to windward of the 
thing, — and what do you suppose the ribbon 
of the breeze told his clever black nose? 


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“Why, it’s Mammy Cottontail !” his nose 
told him, as plainly as could be. 

“What a cam-ou-flage !” he laughed to 
himself. “Now I’ll just simply pretend not 
to know she is there, — and then she won’t get 
frightened and run away before ever I can 
tip-toe up behind her.” 

Thus reasoned Frisky, his eyes dancing at 
thought of the surprise he would give her. 

Now there are always two points of view to 
a thing. Frisky’s only thought was what a 
good dinner Mammy would make for him. 
He meant to slip up behind the tree, then 
dart around the trunk and grab her before 
she could even take alarm and run. 

But to Mammy Cottontail, when her long 
furry ears caught the soft crunching as the 
fox tip-toed over the snow-crust, it meant a 
race for her life ! 

Thus it was that, just as Frisky’s red- 
brown head, with its yellow eyes and pointed 
muzzle, peered around the oak tree, Mammy 
gave one monstrous leap, her long hind legs 
sending her through the air like a streak of 
lightning, ears and tail erect and furry feet 
leaving little scented prints every six feet or so. 


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181 


It was a silent drama. — Jimmy Crow, 
watching from his sentinel pine, might have 
thought it a motion picture, for all the sound 
they made. 

But it was a thrilling race, all the same; 
and Jimmy screamed encouragement to Mam- 
my in a series of wild caws. 



LIV 


A RACE TO THE SWIFT 

It was certainly a thrilling race, Mammy 
Cottontail always just about two leaps ahead 
of Frisky, the red fox pup, and Jimmy 
Crow cawing for all he was worth. 

Mammy’s first thought was to find a briar- 
patch. But the only one she had time to 
reach was drifted deep with snow. 

Her next frightened impulse was to find a 
barbed-wire fence and leap between the wires, 
in the hope that Frisky, following close at her 
heels, would get caught in the barbs. But 
though she found the stretch of fence that 
encircled the quick-sand, where she had once 
got the better of Lop Ear, the snow had 
drifted so high on either side of it that Frisky 
merely climbed the drift and leapt the fence. 

“Why, oh, why did I come out to sun 
myself?” Mammy asked herself. “Any- 
way, I’m glad he’s only a pup! I ought to be 
able to out-wit him, if I can’t out-speed him.” 


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183 


And she stared wildly across the wilderness 
of white, making one of her high ob-ser-va- 
tion leaps about every seventh jump to see 
how much Frisky had gained on her, and 
where to turn next. 

On and on she raced, down the much 
travelled Logging Road, where Frisky might 
have lost her scent had he been depending on 
his nose instead of his eyes, and on through the 
bru-le (the burnt wood), where she leapt first 
one fallen log and then another in the hope of 
finding a good hiding place. 

But Frisky was too close upon her heels for 
that. 

On and on she sped, till at last she found 
herself on the bank of Wild River, where 
always before she had had to turn either to 
the right or to the left, — since she could not 
swim, — doubling back through the concealing 
under-brush. But now the under-brush lay 
banked with snow. 

It was a des-per-ate situation, from Mam- 
my’s point of view, and she was just beginning 
to fear she would never again see faithful, 
devoted Daddy and wee Timothy, — when 
something unexpected happened! 


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Mammy, usually so sure-footed, slipped on 
the top of the crusted snow-bank that lined 
the stream. And the next thing she knew, 
she was skidding straight down to the river! 



LV 


A HAPPY ACCIDENT 

It was a terrifying moment for Mammy 
Cottontail ! 

Racing for her life with Frisky close on her 
trail, she had made the bank of the river, 
uncertain which way to turn. 

Making an ob-ser-va-tion leap, high in air, 
at the top of the crusted drift, she had slipped 
on its icy bank, and gone hurtling straight to 
the River! 

And Mammy was a mighty poor swimmer! 

Then came something as unexpected as it 
was fateful. At the very moment when she 
had thought to feel herself sinking into the 
icy stream, she came plump upon a surface 
hard and un-yield-ing. 

The thin ice held! 

Still, she did not trust it, seeing it stretched 
above such a current. She would never 
have risked it had there been a choice. But 
by a happy accident there was no choice. 


186 


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With great 10-foot leaps she made for the 
farther shore. 

But the red fox pup was not so fortunate. 
The thin, new ice that had up-held Mammy’s 
weight was not quite equal to the added 
strain of his crossing, and in another instant 
he found himself in the water! 

My, how mad he was, through and through, 
as he felt the icy current about him ! 

Fortunately, he was not far from the shore 
he had left, or his adventures would have 
ended speedily. 

Striking out as if his life depended on it, — as 
indeed it did, — he turned back to the bank, 
unheeding the crust of ice which broke before 
him, cutting jagged wounds in his sides. 

After about four strokes he came to the 
thicker ice that had formed on the quiet 
water along the shore; and on to this he just 
managed to scramble by digging his claws 
into it without mercy. 

Now if there is one thing more than another 
that a fox detests, it is getting wet. In that he 
is cat-like. He especially dreads getting his 
great red brush of a tail in the water, for then 
it is heavy and impedes his progress. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


187 




Young Frisky, therefore, lost 
all interest in the rabbit hunt 
in his zeal to speed away home 
and dry his fur. 

Mammy Cottontail had won 
out again! 

Jimmy Crow, who had fol- 
lowed the race, and now sat 
perched in the top of a spruce 
tree, called down his con-grat- 
u-la-tions. 

“What did I tell you, friend?” 
he cawed a bit proudly. “Never 
say die till youTe dead.” 

Then Jimmy flew back to the 
hill beside Pollywog Pond, to 
see how it was going with Frisky 
Fox. 


LVI 

MADAM WOOD HARE 

Mammy now found herself in a strange 
new part of the woods. 

Hiding, trembling, under a juniper bush, she 
waited till mid-afternoon, before her heart 
stopped ham-mer-ing at her ribs. — Then, 
circling back to the River, she found to her 
dis-may that the ice had softened, till there 
was nothing but a scum of floating mush to 
cross on. — She could never get back the way 
she had come! 

Where could she conceal herself from the 
many foes that might want rabbit for supper? 

She cast bulging eyes down the frosty 
aisles of trees. — Mercy! What was that 
strange scent on the wind? — (A scent too faint 
for human nose to tell, yet warning enough 
for a bunny.) 

No time now to explore! — She must hide 
at once! — And with ter-ri-fied leaps she was 
back under the juniper bush, where at least 
nothing could come on her from above. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


189 


For half an hour she crouched there. Then, 
so sud-den-ly that she started in spite of her- 
self, she heard a loud thump, thump-thump 
right behind her! 

“Who are you?” the thumping heels of 
the new-comer sig-nal-led. 

Then came a louder, angrier thump, three 
times repeated, which in rabbit code said as 
plainly as words : 

“Well, I like your nerve! — Clear out of my 
camp if you don’t want to get hurt!” 

“I have first right to that juniper bush, 
and if you don’t vacate in just three shakes of 
your left hind foot, you are going to get in 
bad with me!” 

She had, without a doubt, stumbled upon 
the home of some other bunny. But where 
could she go if she did clear out? These were 
strange woods, and they were full of enemies. 
Should fox or weasel chase her, where could 
she hide? 

Rolling her eyes around plead-ing-ly at 
Madame Wood Hare, she had just about 
decided that it was safer to chance the anger 
of her un-will-ing hos-tess, when the new- 
comer gave her a surprise. 


190 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


Leaping straight at Mammy’s head, Ma- 
dame Wood Hare gave her such a blow across 
the nose with her long hind feet that Mammy 
whimpered with the pain of it. 

Of course Mammy had to vacate. 

And before ever the owner of the form 
under the juniper bush could give her a 
second blow, the little brown hare was darting 
away in long, tired leaps through the wind- 
swept woods. 

There was a patch of willow shrub by the 
river, and Mammy would have liked to wait 
for night-fall and make a dinner off the 
tender tips. But she was not long in finding 
out why Madame Wood Hare had turned her 
out. It was because she needed her own 
house to hide in ! — and that in a hurry! 



LVII 

THE TRAIL OF THE WEASEL 

Madame Wood Hare certainly needed her 
own home to hide in! 

For not far back in the woods, Mammy 
came across a trail that was new to her, — a 
delicate, lacy trail with the tiny, sharp-toed 
foot-prints of some long, slim creature with 
nails that could climb a tree-trunk. 

And clinging fresh to these foot-prints was 
the musky scent of a flesh-eater. 

Mammy’s teeth chattered with fright. It 
was un-doubt-ed-ly the trail of a weasel, most 
dreaded of all her enemies! 

Yes, there could be no mistake about it, — 
here the tiny trail ran straight up a tree- 
trunk, and a blood-stained feather on the 
ground beneath told its own story of a chick-a- 
dee’s nest left empty. 

Then, — high in the tree-tops, — came the 
sudden chat-ter-ing of a ter-ri-fied squirrel. 
— Good! The squirrel had reached his hole, 
presenting a mein of such fierce long teeth 


192 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


that the weasel must have hesitated as to 
whether it was quite worth while. 

What should Mammy do? For the weasel 
might at any moment see her leaping through 
the snow, or cross her trail, — and then it 
would surely be all up with her! 

Mammy Cottontail watched breathlessly 
while the weasel ran along the inter-lacing 
branches, soundless as a shadow, his winter 
coat like the snow that frosted the winter 
woods. 

His slender body ended in a tiny wedge-like 
face with ears laid back flat, and eyes gleam- 
ing red with murder. 

Mammy crouched trembling behind a tree- 
trunk, her round eyes all but starting from 
their sockets. For even as the weasel glided 
snake-like along the limb, he peered this way 
and that through the gathering twi-light. 

But he was after the gray squirrel, who 
now faced him from his hole with teeth bared 
in an angry “Chir-r-r” sounding in-ces-sant 
warning. 

The weasel, with a hiss, snapped his jaws 
at the squirrel’s nose, — while the squirrel, 
fighting for his life, clamped his long front 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


193 


teeth through the weasel’s jaw. But the 
weasel was the larger, stronger animal. — What 
followed turned Mammy’s heart sick within 
her. 

The victor in the unequal contest did not 
even have the excuse of being hungry. He had 
killed merely for the love of sport. And the 
gray squirrel stretched limp on the ground 
beneath, he left it lying untasted. 

That kind of killing was new to Mammy 
Cottontail’s experience. And she knew that 
in a race with a weasel she would stand even 
less of a chance of escape. 

Then — her blood froze with a terror greater 
than she had yet known! — The weazel had 
found HER trail! 

Yes, sir, Mammy’s blood fairly froze, as 
the weazel crossed her trail! 

Equally useless to run or fight, she knew it 
to be, — though she could die trying! 

But even as she hes-i-tat-ed, an amazing 
thing happened. 

It was by now quite dark, and the stars 
were pricking through the curtain of the sky. 
From away up in the top of a scraggly fir 
tree, at this instant, came a long, weird cry. 


194 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


“Wa-hoo! Wa-hoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!" 

It was Whoo Whoo, the great horned owl, 
his feathers now white like the snow. (For 
even he was pro-tect-ive-ly colored, changing 
his coat from bark-brown to snow-white 
every winter.) 

Mammy Cottontail shrank back into the 
snow-bank. 

Then — the owl swooped toward the weasel ! 



LVIII 

ONE FOE AGAINST ANOTHER 

Yes, sir! Mammy Cottontail saw with 
amazement that one enemy was to be played 
off against the other. 

The great white owl was swooping straight 
toward the weasel, yellow claws bared for a 
grip in that writhing back, and beak clicking 
angrily, perhaps at memory of some time 
when the snake-like one had killed the baby 
owls. 

A fierce old warrior was Whoo Whoo, the 
horned owl, with body as long as the weasel’s 
and a great deal heavier. On silent wings the 
great bird dropped to the back of the white- 
furred little murderer sniffing at Mammy’s 
trail. And the weasel turned to face his 
ancient enemy, with teeth bared in a hiss. 

There was a whirl of white, — ghost-like in 
the gray gloom, — then a wild mingling of 
clacks and hisses, — and a great pair of white 
wings rose silently, high above the tree-tops. 


196 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


Their owner clung with beak and claws to a 
writhing, wriggling, snake-like body in white 
fur. But the weasel also clung around the 
great bird’s neck, tearing at his shoulder with 
his teeth, and clawing at the feathery sides 
with his sharp toe-nails. 

Mammy Cottontail did not wait to see how 
the struggle ended, — though Jimmy Crow 
told her the next day. The Horned Owl had 
won, reaching at last to the weasel’s heart 
with his great steel claws, and finally de-vour- 
ing him for supper, with much dis-card-ing 
of the white fur in pellets that he spat out 
upon the ground below. 

No, Mammy Cottontail did not wait to see 
which of her foes came out ahead! The 
instant she saw her two enemies pitted the 
one against the other, she made off up-stream 
as fast as ever she could go. And at last she 
found a place where the river was frozen a little 
harder, so that she could cross on the thin 
ice and make for her home in the Old Apple 
Orchard. 

And for several weeks there-after she was 
quite content with nibbling anything that 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


197 


came her way, — bark and twigs and frozen 
grasses, which could be had near home. 

Then one night, — a mild one for February, 
— she caught a wonderful odor. It was the 
odor of cabbage that was being thrown to the 
chickens at the Valley Farm. And so long had 
she fared on tasteless bark that she deter- 
mined to have a leaf of that cabbage. 

She knew it was a rash resolve, for there 
was Lop Ear the Hound, and Barn-yard Tom, 
and the Hired Man who carried a gun. But 
the wind was blowing that lus-cious odor 
straight to her now, and she simply could 
not resist. 



LIX 

A VISIT TO THE FARM 

The cabbage the Boy was throwing to the 
chickens had been frozen, but that made no 
difference to Mammy Cottontail. It was a 
delicious odor for a brown bunny just the 
same. 

Her mouth watered at the thought of how a 
leaf would taste. How long the winter had 
been, with its cold and hunger and its fear of 
death, as one enemy after another had tried 
to catch her ! And memories came of the long, 
happy summer in the cabbage patch in the 
clearing, when she and Timothy had feasted 
fat all day long, hiding under the giant leaves. 
There, not even the Boy from the Valley Farm 
could find her, when she chose to play hide 
and seek. 

Wriggling her little black nose this way and 
that to sniff, she ventured around the Old 
Orchard Wall, where once more she had taken 
up her quarters, and across the snow that had 
drifted over the barn-yard fence. 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


199 


It was a cheery scene. Not only were the 
chickens clacking over the unexpected meal of 
green stuff, but the cows and sheep and 
horses in the barn were munching and crunch- 
ing and enjoying their suppers hugely, as the 
Boy passed from one stall to another. 

Even Tom and Lop Ear had their bones, 
which they crunched with much growling and 
spitting and licking of chops as they eyed one 
another sus-pi-cious-ly. 

Mammy Cottontail crept just behind the 
gate-post, and there she crouched, so motion- 
less that the Eoy had to look twice before he 
realized that she was not just a little hunk of 
cord wood. 

When he did spy her, he tossed a juicy 
cabbage leaf her way 

This was too much for Mammy, one Knew 
she ought to wait till Lop Ear had eaten and 
gone away. But the best of us are bound to 
be rash sometimes, and there is nothing much 
harder than to watch others eating when you 
are hungry. 

Mammy crept a little nearer. 

Now the door to the cow stable was opened, 
and the milking pails brought forth. 


200 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


The cat, at least, had gone, — though just 
where, Mammy had not seen. 

“Isn’t it mild this evening Father?” the 
Boy asked, as the Farmer came down to pitch 
hay for the horses. “Wish I could drive the 
cows outside, where it is lighter, while we 
milk them!” 

“Well, why don’t you?” the Farmer asked, 
gazing off at the red glow of the mid-winter 
sunset. 

And the next thing Mammy knew, the six 
red cows were trampling the snow in the 
pasture between her and her orchard. 

She was fairly surrounded! 




LX 

A HAPPY ENDING 

Yes, sir, Mammy Cottontail had no sooner 
reached forward for that cabbage leaf than she 
found her way cut off on every hand ! 

On one side was the bam, on the second the 
circle of cows, while on the third her escape 
was cut off at this moment by Barn-yard 
Tom, whom she spied creeping toward her 
along the top of the fence. In the only 
direction left, the Hound sprang forward with 
a bay of delight as Mammy made a wild dash 
in the only direction left! 

(And the cabbage not yet tasted for which 
she had risked her safety!) 

If she had not been faint from hunger, she 
might have ventured a straight-away race with 
Lop Ear. But she was weak and famished, 
and besides, the snow had covered all her 
favorite hiding places. Things certainly 
looked bad for Mammy Cottontail ! 

Then, so swiftly that she was only a brown 
blur on the landscape, Mammy turned and 


202 


TRAIL AND TREE TOP 


darted straight between the legs of the six red 
cows! 

Now the cows hated Lop Ear. Distrusting 
him at best, when he came baying at them 
full-tilt after Mammy, they over-turned the 
milk pails and gathered in a circle with 
lowered horns. 

“Here! Down! Home with you!” the Farmer 
commanded Lop Ear. And the spotted 
Hound, afraid to disobey, gave up the chase, 
and slunk crest-fallen back to the farm-house 
porch, where he sulked with his nose between 
his paws, while Mammy made good her escape. 

That night the Boy followed her tracks 
with a lantern, clear to the Old Stone Wall. 
And there he left her one of the frozen cab- 
bages! 

And for many nights thereafter he treated 
the Cottontail family to the frozen vegetables 
his father was throwing to the pigs. In fact, 
he continued his attentions till spring had 
once more spread her feast of plenty for 
Mammy and her brood. 

(THE END.) 





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